MANILA, Philippines – Companies raised the salary of their employees by an average of 10.24% in 2023, higher than the 7.3% rate in 2022 and above the 5.82% average inflation rate in 2022.

Most companies or 89% handed out raises in 2023, which was higher than the 78% in 2022, according to the 2024 Compensation and Benefits study of Jobstreet by Seek. Among the 685 companies surveyed in 2023, 36% of companies gave a raise of between 6% to 10% while another 28% gave a raise of between 1% to 5%.

“It’s encouraging to note that this average increment surpasses the national annual inflation rate of 5.82% in 2022. This means that employees not only regained lost ground but also saw real wage growth,” the report said.

There were also greater career advancement opportunities in 2023, with 70% of companies handing out staff promotions – higher than the 60% of companies in 2022. In 2023, promotions come with an average salary increment of 12.54%.

Performance bonuses also grew in 2023, with the average bonus now being 2.3 months of salary, up from the 1.3 months average bonus in 2022. When it came to other benefits, medical insurance and health checks were by far the most popular financial benefits offered to employees.

Flexible work arrangements

Companies are also embracing flexible working arrangements. Already, 51% of companies have flexible working hours, while 18% more either recently implemented it or plan to do so in the next 12 months. Half of all companies also have flexible working locations that allow employees to be at other places beside their home and office, with 44% already implementing it and 6% adding the benefit in 2023.

Looking ahead, the report said that it seems “flexible workplaces are here to stay.” In 2023, only 57% of companies had all their employees fully at the workplace or office. The rest of the companies had some form of remote work, with 21% of companies having some employees fully at the workplace and some remote depending on the job function, 8% having all employees fully onsite for a few days and remote for the rest of the week, 8% allowing employee rotation between onsite and remote work, and 4% allowing all employees to work remotely.

“Filipinos are more interested in not going back to the office at all than global average (28% would like to work fully remotely, versus 11% globally),” the report noted.

When it came to preferred work location, 46% of Filipinos said they wanted a hybrid work model, 28% wanted a fully remote model, and 26% wanted a fully on-site model. In other Southeast Asian countries, the majority of employees preferred a hybrid model (62%), followed by fully on-site (27%), and then fully remote (11%). – Rappler.com