The DQ-IDC India Salary Survey'04

The spring in the step is back. A year ago, the average hike stood at a mere
7%. It's a different story now. The figure for average salary this year
stood at Rs 5.7 lakh per annum, up from Rs 4.8 lakh in 2003. That's a growth
of 19%.

The elite DQ Top 20 club upped headcount by 35% in 2004, as compared to 28%
in 2003. A large part of this recruitment happened for entry-level positions.
The result: the average salary of employees with less than two years of work
experience saw a dip of 12%, and, incidentally, this was the only bracket to see
a decline in salaries. For senior employees-those with ten or more years of
experience-the jump in salary stood at a whopping 26%.

The middle level too was a happier lot last year, as their paychecks got
chunkier too, unlike in 2003, when their salaries saw a decline, albeit a small
one.

	n Entry level salaries drop 12% (Rs 2.6 lakh average)n Industry average salary up 19% (Rs 5.7 lakh)
	n Senior exec salaries up 26% (Rs 12.4 lakh average, above 10 years experience)
	n Overall, higher hikes than last year (average hike 17%)
	n Perks and benefits extended to a larger employee base
	n Variable/performance-linked component of compensation goes up

But salaries have not been such a great motivator and this trend has been
evident for a while now. According to the Best Employers' Survey 2004, salary
and compensation ranked at the fifth position as the reason for joining and only
8% of the respondents attributed it to be the basic reason for joining a
company. The same stood at 10% in 2003, clearly indicating the fact that
"show me the money," is a thing of the past.

Perquisites and benefits ranked a low eleventh and less than 2% of the
respondents considered it the most important before joining a company. Job
content and growth opportunities are the magnets that draw the software pro
today. And therefore not many an eyebrows are raised when one hears of a
software professional coming back to Bangalore from the Valley. "It's the
project dumbo."

Salary Hike Comparison	The Ageing Youngsters
Salaries have been rising in 2003-04, and a larger number of employees saw a higher hike than in 2002-03. The industry-wide trend has been that the well being was distributed amongst all on board. In all of the bigger bands (i.e. 16% and over), the proportion of employees saw a jump, while the reverse was true for the bands below that. The last hike in average salary stood at 17% in 2004 as compared to 16% in 2003	The industry is not getting younger but continues to be a young one in all senses of the word. Despite the frantic hiring of fresh graduates, the average age rose to 28.9 years. The proportion of those younger than 25 years of age continues to drop. It stood at 29% in 2002 and stands now at 22%. The 26-35- year-olds make up nearly 70% of the industry, indicating that the industry is maturing, and therefore, that the cumulative work experience captive in its workforce is also on the rise.
DQ-IDC India Salary Survey 2004 Base: 1,010 employees

We present the DQ IDC India IT Salary Survey 2004. Read on for more
results.

Methodology

The DQ-IDC Best Employer Survey for 2003 and 2004 were carried out in six
major cities across the country — Mumbai, New Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata,
Hyderabad and Bangalore. For the IT survey, questionnaires were sent out to 200
companies, for both 2003 and 2004. Out of this, around 45 companies participated
in the second round for both the years. In the next round, a large-scale face to
face survey was conducted among the employees of the short-listed companies. The
salary survey data and profiles of the IT industry are derived from these
employee interviews.

Note: Salary data published here is all derived from the field surveys of BES
2004 and BES 2003, for fair comparison. The BES 2003 data shown here may hence
differ from that published in the November 15, 2003 issue.