The majority of private firms are expected to step up investments and employment in 2025-26, as India continues to shine as a bright spot in a challenging global economic environment, according to a survey by industry body CII.
Wage growth, which impacts personal consumption, a major proportion (around 40% to 45%) of sample firms surveyed saw an increase in average wage growth for senior management, managerial/ supervisory roles, and regular workers in the range of 10% to 20% in FY25.
A similar trend was observed in FY24, underscoring sustained growth in employee earnings.
“The sound economic policies initiated by the government have helped revive the economy, with a strong emphasis on public capex-led growth,” the report noted.
CII conducted a pan-India survey to assess trends in private-sector investments, employment generation and wage growth. While the survey is set to cover 500 firms by the first week of February, interim results from 300 firms across large, medium, and small enterprises reveal an optimistic outlook for the Indian economy.
“Given that 70% of the firms surveyed said they plan to invest in FY26, an uptick in private investments might be on the horizon over the next few quarters,” said Chandrajit Banerjee, director general at CII.
Along with economic growth, employment generation has been a key focus in policy discussions, with India’s vision of a “Viksit Bharat” by 2047 heavily reliant on creating high-quality jobs.
The early results from the survey showed that around 97% of the sample firms expect to increase employment in both 2024-25 and 2025-26. In fact, 79% of firms reported adding employees over the past three years.
Responding to the question on extent of employment generation expected in FY25 and FY26, about 97% of the firms indicated that employment is expected to increase with 42% to 46% of the firms indicating 10 to 20% increase in employment over and above the existing workforce and about 31% to 36% of them have indicated an expected increase in employment of upto 10%.
“With private investments and employment, the two critical drivers of growth, showing positive trends, we are confident that overall economic growth will remain stable at around 6.4%–6.7% this year and is likely to reach 7.0% in FY26,” Banerjee added.