Manufacturing sector lowest paid with ₹211.7 median hourly gross salary, reports Monster Salary Index

Monster India, an online career and recruitment solutions providers in the country, released the ‘Monster Salary Index’ (MSI) for 2016. The findings of the report indicate that Manufacturing is the lowest paid sector with a median gross salary of ₹211.7. This comes as a revelation at a stage where there have been concentrated efforts towards making India a manufacturing hub. The report highlights that despite economic growth, the median hourly salary decreased by 16.0%, going from ₹251.9 in 2014 to ₹252.1 in 2015 and 211.7 in 2016. The rate at which the salaries in the sector is dipping could pose a challenge to attract new talent entering the marketplace.

Analysing various parameters, MSI highlights that employees in the Manufacturing sector with only secondary education earn ₹101.4 which is 62.6% less than master graduates at ₹270.8. Male employees in the sector earn ₹256.6 on an average and female employees earn ₹179.8, constituting a 29.9% gender pay gap. Additionally, wholly and partially owned foreign companies pay more than double than that of domestic companies at a median gross hourly salary of ₹349.7. This indicates that improving the gender balance in labour force participation and managing the spate of automation could be an important step for India’s development.

The report covers eight different sectors - Information Technology (IT); Banking, Financial Services, Insurance; Manufacturing; Education and Research; Legal and market consultancy, business activities; Health Care, Caring services, Social work; Transport, Logistics, Communication; Construction and Technical Consultancy.

Table 1: Median hourly wage with respect to educational attainment in the manufacturing sector

Source: WageIndicator Foundation

Sharing his views, Mr. Sanjay Modi, Managing Director (India/Middle East/Southeast Asia/Hong Kong) said, “Manufacturing sector is the backbone for a mature economy as it fuels growth, productivity, employment and strengthens agriculture and service sectors. In India, the manufacturing output contributes about 16%[1] to the overall Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and employs nearly 12%-13% of the labour force. Despite being significant for the Indian economy, the sector remains amongst lowest paid at ₹211.7. Additionally, there is an ambitious target of increasing the GDP contribution of manufacturing sector to 25 per cent of by 2025. In a bid to achieve this, there have been a slew of initiatives such as ease of doing business, relaxed FDI investments rules and infrastructural developments. However, there is a wide gap between opportunities and the potential that is yet to be realized.”

Further elaborating, Mr. Modi further said, “Manufacturing typically is a labour intensive sector. However, owing to automation and technological disruption, availability of relevant skills and capabilities will be the key focus, going forward. Taking hint from this overall structural transformation, there is an immediate need for India to marry human skills with automation in order to fulfil its ambition of becoming a manufacturing powerhouse. The focus should now be on re-skilling, upskilling, building relevant capabilities and creating jobs for the 10 million[2] young people who enter the job market every year.”

At a supervisory position on an average, employees in the Manufacturing sector earn 34.7% more than their subordinates. This strong pay gap observed can be attributed to the pay gap between male and female supervisors. Manufacturing sector is the worst paid in India, however, there has been a subtle increase in the employees’ satisfaction with pay from 50.8% to 53.5%.

Among other job intensive sectors, the highest median gross hourly salary has been observed in the Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance sector at ₹433.0 in 2016, followed by IT at ₹386.8 and healthcare, Caring services and Social Work sector at ₹242.5. The median gross hourly salaries in Education sector stood at INR 204.1 in 2016.

Table 2: Salaries by sector

Source: WageIndicator Foundation

Commenting on the report, Paulien Osse, Director, WageIndicator Foundation said, “The MSI report has been devised based on an extensive methodical research across the sectors. The aim is to empower recruiters and jobseekers to analyze their salaries through a credible platform. We truly value our partnership with Monster.com in devising a report that brings forward substantial findings beneficial for all industries.”

Talking about the report, Prof. Biju Varkkey, IIM-Ahmedabad said, “The insights across sectors give a clear view of the dynamics of job sector in India. The insights across sectors may be effectively leveraged by the industry to address the various issues and challenges in the area of salary, enabling them to look for solutions that would subsequently benefit one and all.”