Government suggests less salary rise in 2014

Beijing set its suggestive guideline for average salary raise in 2014 at 12 percent, as the city's Human Resources and Social Security Bureau announced recently.

Beijing is the 10th provincial-level region that has announced the guideline by June 17. Among the 10 provinces, regions and municipalities, many showed a drop in the percentage of salary raise compared to the previous year, according to China News Service on Wednesday.

The salary guideline, which includes an average, upper and lower level, is an annual requirement from the provincial governments to enterprises to raise employee salaries. It's more suggestive than compulsory.

However in some provincial regions, forceful measures were taken to guarantee the salary rise.

In Beijing, the upper level of the rise in 2014 is set at 16 percent, while the lower is 4.5 percent. Henan province and Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region top the 10 regions for setting the average level of a raise at 15 percent.

Zhang Chewei from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences told the China News that the drop in average guidelines indicates slower economic growth, and the companies' rising costs as well as reduction of possible profit.

Zhang pointed out the guidelines don't represent the actual raise for individual employees. And he suggested that market rules have more of a say in raises.

Experts like Zhang call for a tax reduction on enterprises to ease their pressure and spur salary raises. In the long run, a healthy mechanism should be built to achieve that.