Salary growth for Indian professionals may range from a marginally positive to stagnant or even negative, given the dire situation created by COVID-19, but increment for some of the “super-specialized” profiles can go beyond 15 per cent, a report said on Tuesday.

According to TeamLease Jobs & Salaries Primer Report 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has not only impacted the employment landscape, it has disrupted the way India Inc rewards its talent.

As per the report, across sectors and cities, employers are cherry picking super-specialized profiles, and are rewarding them with greater than 15 per cent salary growth.

Salaries, in general, grew between 4.26 per cent (minimum) and 11.22 per cent (maximum) across sectors and cities, it said.

“While businesses will stay conservative with salary increments, they have not shied away from rewarding specialized skills. In fact, the pandemic has amplified the importance of skilled profiles in the world of work. It has brought to forefront the trinity between skills, performance and rewards,” said Rituparna Chakraborty, co-founder & executive vice president, TeamLease Services.

Chakraborty further said that “the 15 per cent increment that companies are willing to offer to specialized profiles is a testimony of this. Not only now, as more and more organizations are opting for an asset light, debt-free model, the trend of rewarding talent based on their skill and outcome is here to stay”.

As per the analysis, the profiles that will see an increment in their salaries this year are Hadoop developer in BFSI, animators working in educational services, collection officer in industrial manufacturing and allied and digital marketing head in Information Technology and knowledge services.

“Filling ones armoury with skills that will help in driving outcomes either through up-skilling or re-skilling is the way forward for talent to stay in demand and to command the desired compensation,” she said.

The report further said sectors with significant work-from-home (WFH) profiles are expected to benefit on account of business continuity. These include banking, financial services and insurance, e-commerce & tech startups, information Technology and knowledge services.

The Jobs and Salaries Primer is an annual report from TeamLease Services that analyses the hiring and salary trends across industries. The latest edition has taken into consideration the salary payouts of more than 2,52,000 candidates across 17 sectors and nine cities.