Doha: Aon Hewitt, the global human resources business of Aon Plc yesterday announced the results of its annual Middle East Salary Increase Survey 2012. The report, based on inputs from a robust comparator group of over 500 organisations from 26 sectors in the Middle East, suggests that there will be an average salary increase of 5.6 percent for Qatar next year, based on the input of 42 Qatari companies participating in the survey.
Aon Hewitt has been conducting the survey on an annual basis across the globe for 36 years and launched it in the Middle East for the first time in 2009. The survey is conducted in nine countries in the region, including: Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates.
A 6.08 percent salary increase was projected next year for the Middle East as a whole and an average increase of 5.4 percent for the GCC, the same as the projection made last year and this year.
The report highlights that fewer organisations in the Middle East are thinking about salary freezes. Only 1.3 percent of organisations in UAE have projected a salary freeze next year compared to 4.1 percent this year.
The major exception to this trend is Qatar where at least 8 percent of organisations have projected a salary freeze next year against 2.4 percent this year. This may be attributed to the high salary increase given to Qatari National employees in 2011, with organisations now trying to induce market competitiveness to normalise the impact.
Martin McGuigan, Head of Reward Consulting, Aon Hewitt Middle East said: “All macro-indicators have shown that the economic scenario continues to move in a positive direction with corporates continuing to show confidence in the 2013 economic outlook. In Qatar, we are seeing more and more employers projecting a salary freeze for 2013 which implies that employers are being cautious following the decision to increase salaries for Qatari nationals working with state departments by 60 percent last year. However, the good news for employees is that, at large, there are no further reductions in the salary increase projections for the next year. We have also observed that organisations have increasingly been linking salary rewards to performance, which is a healthy trend and indicates the increasing maturity level of the market.”
The survey is part of Aon Hewitt’s suite of evidence-based, research-led studies including Qudurat, Best Employers Middle East (BEME), Total Compensation Measurement (TCM) and People Risk Index (PRI). The Peninsula
