Singapore real salaries to grow 3% in 2019

The wage hike lags behind that of India (5%) and Vietnam (4.8%).

Singapore employees can look forward to their paychecks as their real salaries are expected to rise 3% in 2019 amidst a service-driven economy that continues to keep pressure on wages, according to Korn Ferry’s 2019 salary forecast.

“We’ve seen changes in the market drive the highest base salary movements in the oil and gas sector (at 4.0%), as well as transportation, hi-tech, chemicals and public sector (all at 3.0%), whilst we saw the lowest changes in the industrial goods sector (close to 2.0%).” said Mirka Kowalczuk, Head of Pay and Engagement Delivery, APAC, Products Group, Korn Ferry.

Real salary growth in Singapore trails behind the inflation-adjusted wage increase in India (5%), Vietnam (4.8%), Thailand (3.9%), Malaysia (3.6%), China (3.2%) and Indonesia (3.7%).

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The survey also forecasted salaries to rise by 2.4% in Taiwan; 1.3% in the Philippines; 2.8% in Korea; 1.7% in Hong Kong and 0.1% in Japan and fall 1.2% in Papua New Guinea.

“With inflation rising in most parts of the world, we’re seeing a cut in real-wage increases across the globe,” said Robert Li, Senior Client Partner, Korn Ferry. “Asia has managed to maintain similar salary increase forecast as last year, driven by the strong economic outlook in this region and projected subdued inflation.”

Korn Ferry revealed that salary increases for employees within the engineering and information technology industries receive a mere 2.8-3.4% increase amidst an expected salary premium given the talent shortage for roles in these sectors.

Also read: 1 in 5 professionals expect a 10% salary increase in 2019: survey

Although bonus payment trends doled out by organisations in Singapore slightly increased across industries, KornFerry noted that there is little difference between actual bonus payouts of an employee that receives an above or below expectation rating.

“The percentage of salary and variable bonus increase or decrease will vary by role, industry, country and region, but one thing is clear. On average, the conventional approach of a one-size-fits-all solution to performance management still dominates the general market,” Farhan Mahmood, client director for Singapore’s products group at Korn Ferry underlined.