Want a Good Raise? Go to China

China’s Yen for High Pay: Forget the U.S. trade deficit with China. Bigger news is how workers on the Asian subcontinent can look forward to robust pay increases that far outstrip those of U.S. employees. According to Hay Group, a Philadelphia-based HR consulting firm, high-growth economies such as those in China, India and Eastern Europe should produce annual pay increases approaching 8 percent in 2007. That compares with real increases of 1.4 percent of U.S. administrative, professional and senior management employees, according to Hay’s pay survey. Driving the East’s soaring pay scale is a newly wealthy China, which tops the list of pay increases for each job category: 7.9 percent for administrative workers, 7.8 percent for professionals and 8.9 percent for senior managers.

—Garry Kranz