

The bank plans to add 2,500 people in India in 2010, on a par with its additions in 2009. People will wait to see the first quarter performance," said Madhavi Lall, human resources head for India and South Asia at British bank Standard Chartered Plc. “Companies will pick up in hiring in May-June. India’s economy is estimated to grow at 7.2% in 2009-10 and at 8.5% in 2010-11.

Balaji, chief executive of the Indian arm of Ma Foi. Hiring, however, will gain traction only in the second quarter of 2010-11 as companies are still cautious about the economic recovery, said E. The Ma Foi Randstad survey covered 650 companies across 13 industry sectors in eight major cities - Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai and Pune.Ma Foi, a unit of Dutch human resources firm Randstad Holding NV, surveyed chief executives or human resources heads at 1,000 companies across sectors in India. Meanwhile, the media and entertainment and manufacturing (machinery and equipment) sectors are expected to witness pay hikes of only around eight per cent in the entire fiscal. The banking, financial services and insurance sector is expected to witness an average 10.3 per cent pay hike in 2010-11. Other sectors which are expected to see double digit salary hikes in the current fiscal include education and consultancy (12.6 per cent), IT & IT-enabled services (11.1 per cent) and hospitality (10.6 per cent).

The real estate and healthcare sectors are both projected to see pay hikes of 12.1 per cent, while the energy space may see pay packages grow by 12.8 per cent on average this fiscal. "Rising purchasing power and increasing penetration of health insurance will support strong growth in business (pharma sector) over the coming months," the survey added. The pharmaceutical sector is expected to see the highest salary increases of 13.2 per cent on average in the current fiscal, the survey revealed.
