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Employees in Singapore can expect to receive on average a 4.5% salary increase in 2012  - higher than the 4.1% wage hike they received this year but lower than the regional average of 6.3%. This is according to the latest Salary Trends Survey by ECA International..

With inflation expected to moderate next year compared with this year, salaries of Singapore employees will be better off in real terms in 2012. When inflation, forecast  to be 2.9% next year, is factored in, Singaporeans will experience a real wage increase of 1.6%, an improvement over the 0.4% real wage increase seen this year.

"Clearly there is a lot of uncertainty about the near-future," says Lee Quane, Regional Director, ECA International in Asia. "Even developing nations that have retained high growth are growing uneasy at the prospect of a renewed slowdown in the global marketplace."

On average companies throughout the region are forecasting slightly higher increases in 2012 than this year, as is the case in Singapore. While inflation globally is generally expected to be lower in 2012 than this year, it may still be quite high, especially in Asia, and the longer inflation remains elevated, the higher people’s expectations become for future inflation, a mind-set which pushes up pay demands."

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