Managerial salaries increased by an average of 6 per cent in the 12 months to April 1st last, according to a new Irish Management Institute survey. The inflation rate in the same period was 1.4 per cent.
The rise in salaries represents an increase of 2 percentage points on the average increase of 4 per cent in 1997-1998, when inflation was running at 2.5 per cent. The chief executive of the IMI, Mr Barry Kenny, said manager's average real pay increase was 4.6 per cent over inflation. "When compared with last year's more modest real increase of 1.5 per cent, it seems that companies are prepared to tolerate some loss of competitiveness to retain talent," Mr Kenny.
Some 252 companies employing 6,189 managers took part in the IMI's annual Executive Salaries in Ireland survey.
About 45 per cent of companies questioned said they would increase managerial salaries between April 1st and December, 1999. Of these, 53 per cent said they planned to increase the salaries of senior staff by 5 per cent.
The survey also recorded a "very encouraging" increase in the participation of women in middle management, which rose from 18 per cent to 24 per cent. A rise from 4 to 5 per cent in the number of women chief executives was also recorded. Head of function participation rates rose from 14 to 16 per cent. However, the number of women in front line management fell from 32 per cent to 28 per cent. Some 40 per cent of the companies surveyed operate share incentive schemes, up from 35 per cent recorded in the previous study. Mr Kenny said this was an encouraging trend.
The survey also revealed that managers are retiring earlier. It said the normal retirement age was 60 in almost 20 per cent of the firms surveyed.
The survey said 78 per cent of respondents operate a management bonus scheme with the percentage of such bonuses increasing with the seniority of the position. In over 40 per cent of cases, the chief executive bonus was greater than 20 per cent of salary. Over half of middle management received a bonus of up to 10 per cent.
