According to a prediction by Korn Ferry, the consulting firm, salaries in Singapore might increase by 3 percent in 2019. This percentage hike would be after adjusting for inflation.

Compared to the 2018 predicted increase, the 3 percent increase is higher than the earlier 2.3 percent. The hike in salaries is due to the rising demand for highly-skilled professionals thus putting a lot of pressure on employers to raise the salaries in order to hire and retain top talent.

The highest projected base salary movements could be observed in the oil and gas sector with a rise of 3 percent in 2019. The transportation, high-tech, chemicals and public sector grew by 2 percent. The industrial goods sector on the other hand has experienced the lowest increase of upto 1 percent.

Even though the demand for highly-skilled individuals is higher in some sectors, the pay hike is not upto the par. About 38 percent of the companies say that they lack engineers and 29 percent say they are looking for IT talent. At the same time, the salary increases for existing employees in these functions vary between 2.8 to 3.4 percent.

Moreover, the report shows that performance ratings of employees are not uniformly reflected in their variable bonus payouts. There is little differentiation in terms of actual bonus payouts received by an employee with an above expectation and an employee with below expectation rating.

On a global level, salaries are expected to grow at an average of 1 percent in 2019, after accounting for inflation. In 2018, the expected rise in salary was 1.5 percent.