MUMBAI: This appraisal season, wages across industries are likely to increase by 9.5%, signaling a drop from 10.3% last year, according to Aon Hewitt ’s 21st Annual India Salary Increase Survey that covered more than 1,000 companies across the country.However, India’s biggest companies are likely to increase pay at the slowest pace since the 2009 global recession.According to exclusive data from Aon Hewitt’s Survey, the top 100 companies based on employer brand recall and size, will likely give average pay increases of 8.2%, a rate last seen in 2009. This projected rate compares with 9.5% last year.With Corporate India’s compensation budgets gradually declining since 2013, the days of 11-12% pay hikes for average performers may soon become a thing of the past. Salary increments on average are expected to settle in the 9.5-10% range in the coming years.“It had to happen. Companies are becoming conscious of how much they pay. With lower inflation rates in the economy, they cannot keep on paying the kind of increments they have given out in the past,” says Anandorup Ghose, partner at Aon Hewitt India.While global and local events, such as US election outcome,Brexit and the currency swap, have affected the wagegrowth trajectory, the trend this year reflects higher emphasis on productivity and performance in what is referred to as ‘graying’ of salary budgets.The pay-for-performance agenda continues to gain ground, with top performers across companies likely to bag 1.8X the average increments. For large companies, it will be 1.9X.“Last year has shown that organisations take a strong view towards performance differentiation and not only have bell curves become sharper, but pay differentiation between top and average performers has also increased,” added Ghose.Firms are also focusing on high skills and key talent. The number of organisations who have identified digital and allied skills as hot skills has increased from 5% to 2011 to 50% in 2017. Compliance and risk continues to remain hot whereas quality, product, development and marketing are losing some of their sheen.Although the majority of industries projected a sub-10% increase, the business sentiment remains positive and optimistic.Sectors such as life sciences, professional services, chemicals, entertainment media, automotive and consumer products continue to project a double-digit increase for 2017. However, they have all seen a drop from their actual spends in 2016.Some industries such as technology, telecom and consumer, have been affected more than others, in that they have seen faster moderation of pay increases. Consumer internet companies, projected to lead the way in 2016 with the biggest pay increases of 15.6%, actually paid out 12.9% last year. This year, they have projected increases of 12.4%, revealed the survey, a level still the highest across sectors.Overall attrition rate at 16.4%, is similar to that in 2015 and the lowest for five years. While attrition was contained at a broader level, key talent attrition increased from 7.3% in 2015 to 12.3% in 2016.