New Delhi, Feb 17 (IANS): Talent, recruitment and health solutions player Aon Hewitt on Wednesday said e-commerce industry leads its annual salary increase survey in India by forecasting a projected salary hike of 15.6 percent for the industry in 2016.

E-commerce is followed by Life Sciences with 11.6 percent projected salary increases, Media (Electronic and Print) with 11.2 percent and IT with 10.8 percent.

"The 'Early stage companies/Start Ups' stand out despite being in the pre-profit stage for over three years and continue to have an aggressive stand on pay," said Aon Hewitt in a statement.

Other industries with a projected salary hike of 10 percent or more include Consumer products 10.8 percent, Automobile manufacturing and Retail 10.7 percent, Chemicals 10.7 percent, IT Enabled Service (ITES) 10.3 percent, Engineering/Manufacturing 1.3 percent and Engineering Services 10.2 percent.

Drawing inferences from the survey which studied data from 700 companies, Aon Hewitt highlighted that corporate India is taking a pragmatic approach towards pay increases.

"Indian companies are taking very clear steps to arrest the steady increase in compensation budgets. The lower inflation rates in the economy has also helped companies in deciding on the reduced salary increases without creating too much of a disruption in the lives of employees," said Aon Hewitt partner Anandorup Ghose in a statement.

According to the survey, many industries took a marginal dip in their overall budgets compared to the actual spends of 2015.

Life Sciences, Media and Consumer Products industries have projected higher salary increase than the market average, a trend consistent with them since 2012, the statement said.

Financial Institutions featured at the bottom of the survey with a projected salary increase of 8.8 percent.

Other industries with the low pay hikes include Metals 9.3 percent, Telecom Services and Transportation/Logistics/Shipping Services 9.7 percent, Cement and RE & Infrastructure 9.8 percent and Hospitality & QSR and Energy (Oil/Gas/Coal/Power) 9.9 percent.

The survey highlighted companies are focusing on performance and reserving a larger proportion of the budget to high performers.

While investment on key talent has emerged as the major trend this year which includes high potential and hot skills apart from high performers.

Interestingly, the percentage of top performing employees has dropped by 30 percent in the past five years.

"At an average pay increase budget of 10.3 percent across India, HR managers will be pushed to ensure they are being more innovative and thoughtful in how they reward their top performers while ensuring they are able to retain and motivate the rest of the organisation as well," added Bose in the statement.