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Salary Survey

author-image
DQI Bureau
New Update

This wasn’t a good year for IT pay packets. But all told, it wasn’t a bad

year either. Increments–that big annual hoopla of the industry–lost some of

their sheen despite which IT jobs remain among the best paying in the country.

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Consider some numbers–by and large, entry-level salaries for people with

less than two years’ experience range from Rs 2 to 3 lakh, with some

development centers of international product companies even offering Rs 5 lakh

per year. Nearly half the workforce with 2-5 years of experience gets between Rs

4 and Rs 6 lakh annually. In fact, if you ignore the fringe numbers, most IT

employees with 2-5 years’ experience fall in the Rs 2-6 lakh income bracket.

Between 5-10 years, the pay packet largely ranges from Rs 6 to Rs 9 lakh. After

that, salary figures stop making sense, varying all the way from Rs 10 to Rs 90

lakh per annum for those with over 10 years of experience.

The bad news? The increment chart is suddenly looking a lot flatter and is

likely to remain that way through this year. Salary hikes had already been

affected drastically during the DQ salary survey of April last year–when they

went down from an average of 40% or so to 15% in most companies. This year, that

fall got broadbased. Over 50% of IT employees got increments of 15% or less,

compared to 39% last year. This percentage is among those who even got

increments in the first place.

Male

to Female Ratio Among IT Professionals
Company M/F

Ratio
Rolta 24:1
Mascon

Global
19:1
HCL

Infosystems
12:1
Adobe 11:1
Datacraft

India
8:1
Digital

Globalsoft
7:1
HCL

Technologies
6:1
Sun

Microsystems
6:1
HP 5:1
Cadence

Design Systems
5:1
Infosys 5:1
Kshema

Technologies
4:1
Wipro 4:1
TCS 4:1
SAP 4:1
Hughes

Software Systems
4:1
iFlex 4:1
Philips 3:1
Cognizant

Technology
3:1
NIIT 2:1
Source:

IDC, 2002. Figures rounded off.
On

an average, there are seven male employees to every female employee in the

IT industry, or roughly, about 12.5% of the industry is populated by

women. This varies widely from company to company, with NIIT having the

highest proportion of female employees (29%) and Rolta the lowest (4%).

Other companies with a comparatively large proportion of female employees

include Cognizant Technology Solutions, Philips and i-Flex. Other largely

male-dominated companies are Mascon Global, HCL Infosystems, Adobe India

and Datacraft. About 17% of Infosys Technolgies’ employees, 20% of TCS

employees and 19% of Wipro employees are women.
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In fact, a lot of companies, ranging from relatively small software exporters

to large MNC vendors, actually cut salaries from anywhere between 10 and 20%

across the board. It wasn’t just the high-paying startups that first cut down

salaries and then staff strength. The pre-merger HP brought some of the US

flavor to India, offering its employees the option of either going on leave for

a while or taking a 10% salary cut–that was around August last year. The

exercise was voluntary and the company says over 90% employees volunteered to

take the cut. Others like Infosys linked part of the increment to overall

company performance for a while.

Employee

Break-up by Salary and Experience
Salary (Rs Lakh p.a.) Employees %
10

plus years experience level
0.1

to 5.0
0
5.1

to 10.0
11.7
10.1

to 15.0
12.3
15.1

to 20.0
11.5
20.1

to 25.0
3.4
25.1

to 30.0
22.9
30.1

to 35.0
6.7
35.1

to 40.0
11.5
40.1

to 45.0
2.1
45.1

to 50.0
3.1
50.1

to 90
14.8
Frankly,

these numbers are shaky. The 10 years-plus experience level includes the

top management, and this skews the findings. Among the Top 5 software

companies, for instance, top management salaries can range anywhere

between Rs 2 crore and Rs 5 crore per annum for marketing heads working

out of the US, drawing dollar salaries. So though the average here looks

like Rs 32 lakh per annum (Rs 42 lakh for the Top 5), the real numbers for

employees with more than 10 years of experience who don’t fall into the

top 1-2 % of the top management category is likely to be lower. With that

fiat, the numbers show that about 24% of IT professionals with more than

10 years in the business draw between Rs 10.1 to Rs 20 lakh per annum.

Another large chunk of 26.3% draws between Rs 25.1 lakh and Rs 30 lakh per

annum.
Salary



(Rs Lakh p.a.)
Employees



%
Salary



(Rs Lakh p.a.)
Employees



%
Salary



(Rs Lakh p.a.)
Employees



%
5

to 10 yrs experience level
2

to 5 yrs experience level
Less

than 2 years experience
0.1 to 3 3.4 0.1 to 2.0 2.6 0.1 to 1.0 0
3.1 to 6 16 2.1 to 4.0 31 1.1 to 2.0 13.8
6.1 to 9 39.4 4.1 to 6.0 48.4 2.1 to 3.0 66.8
9.1 to 12 37.5 6.1 to 8.0 17.8 3.1 to 4.0 4.2
12.1 to 15 3.2 8.1 to 10.0 0 4.1 to 5.0 9.6
15.1

and above
0.6 10.1

& above
0.3 5.1 &

above
5.5
About

40% of Indian IT professionals with 5-10 years of experience get between

Rs 6 lakh and Rs 9 lakh gross salaries. Another chunk of about 37% gets Rs

9 to Rs 12 lakh. Put together, about 77% of IT professionals with 5-10

years of experience draw between Rs 6 lakh and Rs 12 lakh annually, or

about Rs 50,000 to Rs 1 lakh a month.
A

little less than half of all IT employees with 2-5 years of experience

draw between Rs 4-6 lakh per year. The band is comparatively broader here,

though–31% get between Rs 2-4 lakh and another 7.8% get Rs 6-8 lakh

annually. Ignoring the fringe numbers, over 97% professionals in this

experience grouping draw between Rs 2 and Rs 8 lakh.
The

salary numbers are more uniform here than anywhere else, with 67% of all

employees getting between Rs 2.1 and Rs 3 lakh. The range across 33

companies, however, varied from a starting salary of Rs 1.1 lakh to a

little over Rs 5 lakh.
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Average

Salary Across Different Experience Groups

10 plus

Years
5 to 10

Years
2 to 5

Years
less than 2

Years
Industry

Average
32 9 5 3
DQ

Top 10
34 8 5 3
DQ

Top 5
42 9 5 3
All

figures in Rs lakh



Industry average: 33 software companies from the HR survey


DQ Top 10 or 5 are the ‘common’ companies that figure in both the DQ
Top 20 and the HR survey

It’s

still a young industry–a good 30% of IT professionals in the country

today are new entrants, with under 2 years of experience. However, about

37% have been around for a while, with about 2-5 years in the business and

some of them will be on the threshold of moving up from the executive to

manager level. Not surprisingly, it’s still not too heavy at the top,

with only 10.6% of the industry consisting of professionals with over 10

years of experience.

Which was just as well...Year 2001-2002 will be remembered for a long time in

the history of the Indian IT industry as the ‘Year of Layoffs’. And the year

we discovered numerous euphemisms for that word–right-sizing, smart-sizing,

reorganization… There’s no concrete data available on the number of people

actually laid off, but numerous companies pared their staff strength from

anywhere between 2% and 5%. At the very least, most put a stop to hiring.

Company

Rank by Perks & Benefits



This measures employee perception of their company’s

performance on various perks and benefits. Three companies that

emerged as the dark horses of this HR survey, also it turns out,

have the best perks–Adobe, SAP and Cadence. Adobe is among the few

companies that provides hospitalization cover to a majority of its

employees, while most Cadence employees said they were eligible for

annual foreign trips. All employees of SAP and Infosys said the

company provided them with home loans, while 88% of SAP employees

also got an annual book allowance. Infosys comes a close fourth,

which–given its sheer size–is quite commendable. i-Flex,

interestingly, also turned in a good performance on perks. And

despite being ranked as the third-best IT employer, Wipro is rated

only 13th on perks and benefits by its employees.
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Without exception, all companies focused on cost-cutting. This ranged all the

way from reduced travel and telephone expenses to a clampdown on office

stationary and, in one case, even tissues in the restrooms. Some perks,

specially those whose withdrawal could cause a fair among of angst–still

stayed untouched. About 62% of employees surveyed said they were still eligible

for lunch allowance, while 36% said they were still getting overtime benefits

(the last applying mostly to software professionals). Companies that could

afford benching put their employees on sundry training programs. So that was one

benefit–if one could call it that in the circumstances–that was not hit

quite as badly. Insurance and reimbursement of medical bills were suddenly perks

that were part of the salary package, so they remained untouched too. Not very

surprisingly, the smaller companies–Adobe, SAP and Cadence–did the best on

employee ratings on perks. Infosys did commendably at #4, considering its size.

i-Flex and Digital were the other two companies that didn’t rank too high

on the Best Employer rankings (see DQ Top 20, 2002 Volume 4), but did well on

perks.

What

are the Perks?



Not surprisingly, the most common and widespread perks across

the industry are life and medical insurance and reimbursement of

medical bills–now more or less part of the standard salary

package. Interestingly, lunch is still hanging in there, with 62%

saying they were eligible for a lunch allowance. Training is still

big, though this figure is not indicative of the actual hours of

training. Close to 45% employees said leave encashment was not

permitted, though loans for a car or house were still available to

over 40% of the employees. A good 36% said they were eligible for

overtime benefits and about 10.7% said annual foreign trips were

part of their benefits. For a few–mostly senior management–the

more uncommon allowances, viz utilities, helper etc, seemed

unchanged. For data on some of the other perks see graph.
While

the effects of the slowdown on salary increments were felt during

the last survey itself, well over a year ago, things got a little

worse this year. Nearly 55% of IT employees got an increment of 15%

or less (compared to 39% last year). As a result, fewer got

increments in the 16-30% band (down from 54.2% to 37.2%). However,

the proportion of employees in the 31-40% increment range went up

quite sharply–jumping from 1.8% to 5.2%. Essentially, there was a

movement toward two increment ranges–less than 15% and 31-40%.

Overall, average salary increments in the industry went down from

18% (with a standard deviation of 8, that’s a band of 10-26%) to

15% (standard deviation of 10, meaning a band of 5-25%).
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Despite this, and perhaps in a perverse way because of it–salary no longer

remained the chief motivator for IT employees. It remained important–it always

will–but job content, security and company image took on greater value. In the

long run, the industry may look back at this as a blessing. While chasing the

money was certainly a valid reason for jumping jobs, it wasn’t always the

wisest one. Last year, more than any, showed us that.

Methodology



The DQ-IDC HR and Salary Survey, 2002 was carried out in seven cities across

the country–Mumbai, New Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Pune.

The first part of the survey, The Best Employers’ Rankings–were carried in

the August 31st issue. (DQ Top 20 Volume 4). The survey was conducted in two

phases–in the first phase, questionnaires were sent out to 198 companies, of

which 48 companies participated. From these, 23 companies were shortlisted on

the basis of various parameters for the second round–the employee survey. The

salary survey uses data from both phases. For the salary figures, data has been

used from 33 companies that cover the entire spectrum–from software to

hardware and services across the country. Data on perks and demographics was

taken from responses from 774 IT employees surveyed in Round II. Salary figures

are "Cost to Company" figures, as given by HR heads of these IT

companies.

Sarita Rani in Bangalore

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