Salary raises lower than last year, but expected to rise in 2017

Both multinationals and local companies have given lower salary increases this year compared to 2015. - Photo cafef.vn

Speaking at a seminar in HCM City on October 6, Hoa Nguyen, senior director of Talentnet, said that while multinationals paid 8.9 per cent more, domestic giants paid 9.3 per cent more, compared to last year's figures of 9 per cent and 9.7 per cent, respectively.

However, companies plan to give a slightly higher salary for 2017 because of more optimistic business forecasts for the 2016-17 period, she said.

The hi-tech, manufacturing, life sciences and chemicals industries were the top four sectors providing the highest salary increase rate in the market at 9.7-9.9 per cent.

Education, financial services and banking, and oil and mining saw the lowest salary increase rate of 5 per cent – 7.5 per cent.

The difference in base salaries paid by multinational and Vietnamese companies remained high at 31 per cent, she said, adding that the difference gradually widens from professional to management levels as multinationals focus on offering higher salaries to managers.

Even though they pay less than multinationals, local companies are willing to be more flexible in pay and compete with foreign firms for key talents.

The 2015 voluntary staff turnover rate of multinational companies was higher than 2014 due to the gradual economy recovery while the staff turnover rate of local companies in 2015 is slightly lower than the 2014, with multinationals having lower average voluntary staff turnover rates than local companies (13.7 per cent versus 17 per cent), she said.

For multinationals, the top three industries with a high staff turnover rate were retail (39 per cent), life sciences (17 per cent) and technology (16.2 per cent), while chemicals and oil and mining had the lowest staff turnover rate.

The jobs of sales managers, sales executives and marketing managers remained the hot jobs, with companies having difficulty recruiting personnel and keeping them for long.

A total of 557 multinational and local companies with more than 244,526 employees in various industries took part in the survey, with the number of Vietnamese companies increasing by 30 per cent over last year's survey.

The increase in the number of Vietnamese companies in the survey indicates their more serious attitude towards remuneration and their desire to improve their salaries and to know how competitive their salaries are compared to the market.