Singapore employees to receive 4.5% pay hike next year

Firms to ramp up productivity measures.

Salaries across Asia Pacific are set to rise an average 7% in 2014, with China and Vietnam leading the way in East Asia in terms of increases after allowing for inflation and Japan seeing the smallest raises, according to a survey conducted by professional services company Towers Watson.

Employees in Singapore can expect 4.5% salary increase in 2014 which is a positive development after taking into account inflation which is set to remain at 2.9% versus 4.6% in 2012.

This is a welcome development as employees have been feeling significant cost of living pressures in the last few years.

“While inflation seems to have stabilised, the on-going tightening of foreign worker policies and government’s push to increase pay for low-income workers will eventually create a market calibration that would push overall wages to go up in the next few years.

Companies are therefore challenged to accelerate productivity measures to off-set potential increase in labour costs.

Increase in productivity can be achieved by driving enhanced employee engagement, and investments in technology and business process improvements,” says Sean Paul Darilay, Global Data Services Leader, South East Asia, Towers Watson.