The Pay Is Gross

T.R. Vivek September 18, 2006 00:00 IST The Pay Is Gross -0001-11-30T00:00:00+05:53

When assorted surveys come out chronicling the sky-high salaries that companies offer freshly-minted graduates, it’s easy to imagine a collective sigh of despair and a deep sense of envy amongst the country’s middle class. Most of us wonder why we didn’t attend such a course. Although this piece is not guaranteed to have a placebo effect on you, it may help ease some of the heartburn.

Consider this: the fancy salary you hear or read about, in most cases, includes intangibles like cost of training, variable pay and relocation expenses. Many of them are just one-time payments. So, a Rs 10 lakh per annum salary actually translates into Rs 6-7 lakh, which makes the take-home gap between you and the new marketing whizkid on the block perhaps not that huge. Take, for instance, a leading airline company. It pays MBA graduates an annual salary of Rs 13 lakh. But that includes several notional benefits such as free airline travel and health insurance premium (Rs 2 lakh). Benefits from potential foreign postings and variable pay accounts for a...