Recruiting in China

New research reveals real pay increases for workers in the United States will substantially lag those in China and India in 2007.

The Hay Group says their new research shows says administrative, professional and senior management employees are predicted to see real increases of just 1.4%, versus increases approaching 8% in high-growth economies.

"Much like their colleagues in Europe, US employees will be seeing relatively modest increases in base salaries when compared to the emerging economies," said Iain Fitzpatrick, General Manager of Hay Group's US Reward Information Services. "Projected 2007 increases are fairly consistent with real increases seen in the US over the past several years."

Hay Group's Global Pay Day analysis, compiled using Hay Group PayNet, one of the world's most comprehensive global pay databases, predicts real base salary increases for administrative, professional and senior management in 2007 for 50 countries worldwide, based on employers' projections once inflation has been considered. The PayNet database contains 7 million individual records from 13,000 organizations in 19 job families across a number of industries.

"The wealth created by rapid, focused economic development is resulting in a pay boom for Chinese and Indian workers, who will enjoy some of the largest real pay increases worldwide in 2007," said Hern Yin Goh, Director of Hay Group Reward Information Services in Shanghai.

China tops the tables for each of the three job categories, with a predicted 7.9% increase for administrative workers, 7.8% for professionals and 8.9% for senior management. High pay increases in India last year ¡ª 7.2% across the board ¡ª look set to continue into 2007. The country boasts the second highest pay increase predictions for 2007, with increases of 6.2% forecast across the three job levels. Senior managers can anticipate a real increase of 6.9%, professionals and administrators 5.9% each.