Singapore—For 2020, workers in Singapore can expect a salary increase of three percent with the rate of inflation already factored in.
This is according to the Salary Trends Report of ECA International, which was released on November 11, Monday. For 2020 in Singapore, the report predicted a salary increase of four percent overall and an inflation rate of one percent.
The average real salary rise for Singaporean workers was 3.3 percent.
However, even with the dip, the predicted increase for next year in one of the highest in the world. And due to a tight supply of labor as well as a low inflation rate, salary increases in Singapore are expected to continue to be high.
Lee Quane, the Regional Director for Asia at ECA International said, “Although the forecasted real salary increase is set to be slightly lower in 2020 than the 3.3% Singapore employees saw in 2019, they will still see a larger increase than their regional neighbours such as Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Japan.
The notably low level of inflation that Singapore has seen over the recent years, coupled with a tight labour supply and talent restrictions due to immigration constraints, implies that salary increases will remain relatively high.”
Moreover, the 3 percent predicted increase for 2020 is higher than it was for 2019 (2.6 percent) and for 2018 (2.7 percent).
The predicted salary increase rate for next year was calculated based on an International survey of anticipated wage increases for the local national staff in over 300 multinational companies in different sectors such as finance, transport, retail and manufacturing.
The report also says that around the world, the predicted rate of increase is at an average of 1.4 percent.
India has the highest predicted rate of increase for salaries next year, at 5.4 percent. In fact, the top 5 countries that anticipate the highest rate of 2020 salary increases are all in Asia, with Vietnam (5.1 percent) in second place, and Indonesia (4.6 percent), Cambodia (4.2 percent) and Thailand (4.1 percent) in third, fourth and fifth places respectively.
Argentina took the bottom place among all the nations, with a -22 predicted salary increase, mainly due to the country’s incredibly high inflation rate of 51 percent.
Mr Quane added, “The nominal salary increase for Argentina has stayed at a whopping 29.0%, the same as last year. However, with inflation significantly higher at an alarming 51.0%, this means that there will be another significant decrease in real salaries for employees in Argentina. Although President Macri and his government have now been replaced by their populist rivals in a recent election, the outlook for Argentina does not look promising and it is likely that the economic situation will get worse before it gets better.”
As for Hong Kong, employees will only be able to enjoy a an average increase of 1.4 percent because of the predicted inflation of 2.6 percent. This is one of the lowest rates on increase in the region, the study shows.
“Despite nominal salary increases staying at 4.0% next year, the predicted drop in inflation from 3.0% to 2.6% implies that employees in Hong Kong will see a slightly better overall salary increase in real terms this year. Although this is still lower than the overall average in Asia Pacific, the fact that the nominal increase will remain at 4.0% in 2020, as it was last year, is surprising given the backdrop of the current economic situation in Hong Kong. However, this underlines the fact that many companies in Hong Kong need to continue to attract and retain staff even in this period of economic adversity for the city,” Mr Quane explained. -/TISG
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