Korn Ferry Puts 2027 Raises at 8.3 Percent in India and 3.3 Percent in the US

A Korn Ferry survey of 5,512 employers across 135 countries, reported by HR Dive, puts average US base-salary budgets for 2027 at 3.3 percent with a median of 3 percent, while employees in India are in line for an average 8.3 percent and those in Switzerland for 1.7 percent. At Metaintro, we read compensation surveys for what they change about your next conversation rather than for the headline percentage, and the useful finding in this one is not the US number. It is that the same job, at the same global employer, carries a completely different raise budget depending on which country the payroll sits in, and almost nobody is getting nothing.

What did the Korn Ferry survey actually find?

The fieldwork was done in June 2026 and covered 5,512 participating employers. On the US numbers, organisations expect to lift overall base-salary budgets by an average of 3.3 percent and a median of 3 percent for 2027, and the median for executive and senior management lands at the same 3 percent, which is itself notable in a year of loud commentary about executive pay pulling away from everyone else.

The distribution matters more than the average. Almost half of employers, 47 percent, said they expect to give raises to at least 95 percent of their people, and 79 percent expect to cover at least 80 percent. Only 2 percent said they plan no increases for anyone. So the common worry, that raises are being switched off entirely, is not what the data shows. What is happening is compression, and it follows the pattern already visible in why 2026 pay raises got smaller and far more selective, where a similar-sized pool gets distributed with more discrimination between people rather than withheld.

The gap between the 3.3 percent average and the 3 percent median is small but tells you something real about the shape of the distribution. A mean above the median means a minority of employers are budgeting well above the typical figure and pulling the average up, while most sit at or just below 3 percent. For an individual that translates into a simple diagnostic. If your organisation is offering close to 3 percent it is behaving normally, and the higher numbers in the coverage are coming from a smaller group of employers rather than from a market you are being left out of.

Why is India at 8.3 percent while Switzerland is at 1.7 percent?

Across the 135 countries in the survey, the largest average increases go to Egypt at 15.7 percent, Ukraine at 10 percent and India at 8.3 percent. The smallest go to Switzerland at 1.7 percent and France at 2.6 percent. Read without context those numbers look like a story about where employers value people most, and that reading is wrong.

Salary budgets track local inflation, local wage competition and local currency conditions far more closely than they track how much an employer likes a workforce. A 15.7 percent budget in a high-inflation economy can still be a real-terms pay cut, while 1.7 percent in Switzerland can hold its value comfortably. The national statistics agencies are the place to check that rather than a global average, and the Swiss Federal Statistical Office and France's Insee both publish the price and wage series that make their low headline numbers legible. The number that matters to you is the gap between your raise and your own cost of living, not the headline percentage, which is the same reasoning behind real wages falling 0.4 percent in the year to June and what that means for your raise. Anyone comparing offers across borders should check local price data, and the US series is published openly by the Bureau of Labor Statistics consumer price index programme.

What does 8.3 percent mean if you work in Indian tech?

It means the budget is there, and it also means it is being fought over. An 8.3 percent average sits well above the global picture and reflects both faster local inflation and genuine competition for specific skills, but averages hide the spread, and in a market where employers are simultaneously running cost reductions the money tends to concentrate on retention-critical people rather than spreading evenly. That is the same selectivity showing up everywhere else in this survey, just at a higher base.

It is also worth setting against what is happening structurally in the same market. Indian technology employers are budgeting real increases while some global firms restructure their India operations, and those two facts coexist because they are decided by different people for different reasons. For the wider view of how pay expectations are landing locally, India's new labour codes and the raises expected alongside them covers the regulatory side that sits underneath the number, and the Reserve Bank of India publishes the inflation series that determines what 8.3 percent is actually worth by the end of the year.

There is a practical trap in the number for anyone negotiating inside a multinational. An 8.3 percent country budget is set centrally as an envelope, and it is then allocated by local managers who are working to the same performance distribution as everywhere else. So the country average tells you what the pool looks like, not what a standard performer receives, and treating the headline as an entitlement is the fastest way to arrive at a disappointing conversation. Ask what the local band is and where you sit in it, because both questions have concrete answers your manager can give.

What is happening to bonuses and incentive pay?

The incentive picture improved slightly and got no more generous. Around 49 percent of participants expect payouts to finish approximately at target or budget for the current fiscal year, up from 38 percent a year earlier, which is a real improvement in reliability. But 37 percent expect payouts below target or not paid at all, and only 14 percent expect to top last year's totals, down sharply from 25 percent who said so a year ago. Korn Ferry described the overall result as indicating "generally stable financial performance."

The firm was direct about what that stability demands in return. "Stable bonus expectations give organizations permission to keep incentives credible but also raise the bar for ensuring payouts are visibly tied to performance, productivity, and transformation outcomes," the report said. In plain terms, the bonus is more likely to arrive than last year and less likely to be a pleasant surprise, and the case for it will lean harder on demonstrable output. If your variable pay is a meaningful share of your package, that argues for documenting outcomes through the year rather than assembling a case in the final month, and seven things you can negotiate when the salary will not move covers what to reach for when the number is genuinely fixed.

Why does the survey say AI is now a pay issue?

Because employers told it so. Asked which factors had the greatest impact on talent and rewards programmes over the previous twelve months, the highest-impact area was increased use of artificial intelligence, reported by 74 percent of respondents. That is a larger share than any economic factor in the same question, which is a striking result for a compensation survey rather than a technology one.

Korn Ferry drew the conclusion sharply. "AI is no longer a technology issue for rewards, it is a new operating context for pay, skills, mobility and job architecture, and organizations that treat it as a side topic will quickly find their reward models obsolete," the report said. What that means concretely is that job architecture, the internal scaffolding of levels, bands and titles that determines what your role can be paid, is being rebuilt around AI capability in a large majority of organisations. Pay bands follow job architecture, so a change there reaches your salary eventually whether or not anyone announces it. The World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs research has been tracking the same restructuring from the skills side, and the two views broadly agree that the reshaping is happening faster inside job design than inside job titles.

That has a timing implication worth acting on. Reward models are usually rebuilt on an annual cycle, and the organisations that told Korn Ferry they are rethinking pay around AI will mostly land those changes at the start of a fiscal year rather than mid-cycle. If your employer is in that 74 percent, the window where your role gets re-levelled is approaching rather than past, and being visibly associated with the new way of working before the bands are redrawn is worth more than arguing about your band after they are.

What does this mean for your career?

Start from the fact that 98 percent of employers are giving something. That reframes the conversation from whether you deserve a raise to where you sit in the distribution, and the 47 percent of employers covering at least 95 percent of staff tells you that a near-universal small increase is the default in most places. If you want more than the default, the argument has to be that you belong in the smaller group the budget is being concentrated on, which is a different case entirely from having had a good year. Comparative pay data by occupation is worth checking before you pick a number, and the management occupations pages give a defensible external reference point for anyone in a supervisory role.

Build that case on the two things this survey says employers now care about. The first is visible, documented outcomes, because that is the standard Korn Ferry says incentive payouts are being held to. The second is AI capability, since three quarters of employers report it reshaping their rewards thinking, so evidence you have changed how work gets done with these tools is unusually well-timed leverage. "In combination with layoffs over the recent years plus the rise of required AI skills, experience is no longer enough," Lacey Kaelani, chief executive of Metaintro, told Fortune. A 3.3 percent budget is precisely the environment that observation describes, because when the pool is small the only thing that moves your share of it is proof.

How should you use a survey number in a pay conversation?

Carefully, and never as the headline of your argument. Quoting an average at a manager invites the obvious answer, that your company is not the average, and it moves the discussion onto budget rather than onto you. The stronger use is private calibration. If your organisation is offering 2 percent against a 3.3 percent market average and a 3 percent median, you know the shape of the gap before you walk in, and you can decide whether to argue, wait or look.

Then argue on the ground the survey identifies. Ask what the increase pool actually is this cycle, whether it is spread evenly or concentrated, and what specifically moves someone into the concentrated group, because a manager can usually answer those without breaching confidentiality. Compare against the official wage series rather than one survey, and the Employment Cost Index from the BLS compensation programme gives a broader read than any single consultancy. For cross-border comparisons the OECD publishes standardised earnings data that avoids the currency distortions a single-country survey can carry. For the mechanics of the conversation itself, fifteen salary negotiation tactics that actually work is more useful than any percentage, and Korn Ferry's own published research sets out the methodology if you want to check how the survey was built before you rely on it.

Related Articles

• Why Your Next Raise Will Be Smaller and More Strategic
• US Private Sector Wage Growth Slowed as Prices Caught Up
• How to Ask for a Raise
• The Loyalty Tax Costing Long-Tenured Workers Thousands in Lost Raises
• Pay Transparency Laws and What You Can Ask
• Why Outside Job Offers Raise Men's Pay More Than Women's
• Real Wages Begin Shrinking Across Developed Economies
• Worker Profit Sharing on AI Gains Quietly Takes Off
• How to Negotiate a Job Offer After You Have It in Writing
• Tech Leads Every Industry in Wage Growth Despite the Layoff Headlines

People Also Asked

Q: How much are US employers budgeting for raises in 2027?

A: Korn Ferry's survey of 5,512 employers puts average US base-salary budgets at 3.3 percent for 2027, with a median of 3 percent. The median for executive and senior management is also 3 percent. Almost half of employers expect to give increases to at least 95 percent of their workforce, and only 2 percent plan no increases for anyone.

Q: Which countries are getting the biggest raises?

A: In the same survey, covering 135 countries, the largest average increases are in Egypt at 15.7 percent, Ukraine at 10 percent and India at 8.3 percent. The smallest are Switzerland at 1.7 percent and France at 2.6 percent. These figures track local inflation and wage competition, so a high percentage does not automatically mean a bigger gain in real terms.

Q: Are bonuses expected to be paid this year?

A: Mostly at target rather than above it. About 49 percent of employers expect payouts around target or budget, up from 38 percent a year earlier, while 37 percent expect payouts below target or nothing at all. Only 14 percent expect to beat last year's totals, down from 25 percent, so reliability improved while generosity did not.

A 3.3 percent budget in one country and 8.3 percent in another is a reminder that your leverage depends heavily on which market you are competing in, not just how well you performed. Metaintro indexes live roles and pay signals across those markets, so you can see what your skills clear elsewhere before you accept whatever your current employer has budgeted. Create your free profile and benchmark yourself against the roles actually open now.