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Industry sees flat IT salaries in 2002

BS ICE Bureau

Salaries in the information technology sector in the country will remain virtually unchanged in 2002 in keeping with the global trends. This marks a break in the years of rising salaries when scarce manpower and stiff competition drove salaries up.

IT industry heavyweights in the city for the annual Computer Association (Compass) show quoted a study released under the title 'RHI Consulting Salary Guide' on Friday and said job orders of the US-based employers indicated a huge pool of manpower available there would keep the salary earners under pressure.

"Starting salaries would be flat in 2002, compared to the 8.4 per cent increase forecast this time last year", they said quoting from the study. In the domestic sector, this would put pressure on companies to become even more cost-competitive and put a strong control on salaries.

Among the user industries, strong demand for IT professionals in 2002 was expected from healthcare, financial and real-estate sectors, the RHI report found. However, hiring would vary according to the region. In India, real-estate was likely to be a poor performer, but larger backroom jobs in healthcare and financial services was likely to drive demand.

IT sector sources quoted Katherine Spencer Lee, executive director of RHI Consulting as saying that only "IT professionals who possess a combination of technical expertise, interpersonal skills, business acumen and industry experience" will be in demand and can expect continued growth in salaries.

In keeping with the anti-terrorist scare, network security professionals will see starting salary increases of up to 3.4 per cent. As safeguarding corporate data is a top priority, it has raised the demand for IT experts in this segment.

The study has projected the highest rise for applications architects, up 6.7 per cent, while starting salaries for consulting and systems integration directors should rise an average of 6.1 per cent.

Other areas where employees can hope for a raise include database managers (up 4.8 per cent over 2001), software engineers (up 4.7 per cent), senior help desk specialists (4.9 per cent higher) and disaster recovery specialists (dearer by 3.1 per cent).

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