SINGAPORE (Oct 4): Dreaming of a nice pay rise at the end of the year? Think again.

Salaries across Asia Pacific are projected to rise 5.9% in 2017 amid slowing economic growth, down from a projected 6.4% in 2016, according to Willis Towers Watson.

This marks the third year in a row that salary increase budgets have declined.

In a bi-annual survey conducted across 22 markets in Asia Pacific in July, the advisory firm found downward pressure on salary increase budgets in the region as employers seek to keep costs down.

Salaries were projected to rise 6.4% in 2016, but in reality rose just 5.8% – falling below 6% for the first time since 2012. This suggests that actual salary increases in 2017 are also likely to fall below the projected 5.9%.

Taking the average inflation for Asia Pacific of 3% into account, the projected increase in real terms for 2017 will be 2.9%, down from 3.5% in 2016.

Only six Asia Pacific countries – Sri Lanka, Indonesia, China, Cambodia, Hong Kong and Taiwan – are expected to see higher base salary increases in real terms during 2017 compared to 2016.

“Back around 2012 and 2013, companies in Asia pumped a lot of money into their salary budgets and drove salaries up, but they didn’t see the revenues rise in tandem, so it made such increases unsustainable. Now these companies are being much more prudent,” says Sambhav Rakyan, Asia Pacific data services practice leader at Willis Towers Watson.

In East Asia and South-east Asia, Vietnam will see the highest base salary increases at 9.6% before inflation is factored in, followed by Indonesia at 9.0%, and China at 7.0%.

According to Willis Towers Watson, Singapore is set to see overall growth at 4.0%.

Factoring in an inflation forecast of 0.8%, employees in Singapore will see projected salary increase in real terms of 3.2% in 2017.