The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) expects an uptick in private investments over the next few quarters going by the interim results of the chamber’s industry survey. 

 The survey, which was conducted on a sample of 300 firms over the past 30 days, suggests that 75 per cent of the respondents believe that the current economic environment is conducive to private investments. “Given that 70 per cent of the firms surveyed said that they would invest in FY26, an uptick in private investments might be on the cards over the next few quarters”, Chandrajit Banerjee, Director General, CII, said. 

Employment Generation 

Along with economic growth, employment generation has also been at the centre-stage in recent policy discussions. India’s vision of a “Viksit Bharat” by 2047 is hinged upon performing well on the imperative of “creation of good quality jobs”. Encouragingly, the early results from the survey show that about 97 per cent of the sample firms are likely to increase employment in both 2024-25 and 2025-26. In fact, 79 per cent of the respondents’ firms said that they added more people over the past three years. 

Responding to the question on extent of employment generation expected in FY25 and FY26, about 97 percent of the firms indicated that employment is expected to increase with 42 per cent to 46 per cent of the firms indicating 10 to 20 per cent increase in employment over and above the existing workforce and about 31 per cent to 36 per cent of them have indicated expected increase in employment of up to 10 per cent.

The average increase in direct employment due to planned investments in next one year is expected to be in the range of 15 percent to 22 per cent between manufacturing and services sectors, respectively. Similar expectations were seen in the interim results on indirect employment with manufacturing and services firms expecting about 14 per cent increase in indirect employment over and above the existing levels of employment.

Majority of the firms surveyed indicated that it takes anywhere between 1 to 6 months to fill in vacancies of senior management, management/ supervisory level, while regular and contractual workers take less time to fill in a vacant position indicating the need to fill the availability of skilled staff at the higher level in sample firms. “With the two critical drivers of growth – private investments and employment – looking positive, we feel confident that the overall growth is likely to remain around a stable 6.4-6.7 per cent this year and is likely to be 7.0 per cent in FY26”, Banerjee said. 

Wages Growth 

On wages growth, which has an impact on personal consumption, a major proportion (~40 to 45 per cent) of sample firms surveyed saw an increase in average wage growth for senior management, managerial/ supervisory roles and for regular workers in the range of 10 to 20 per cent in FY25. The trend was similar in FY24.

“These are promising results, exhibiting confidence about some of the important aspects of the economy. That said, results of the survey, when read along with various other emerging economic indicators, will help in a comprehensive understanding of the economy”, Banerjee added. 

CII initiated an Industry survey to assess the pick-up in private sector investments, employment in private sector and growth in wages in private sector. The pan-India survey is an ongoing initiative, which would be completed for 500 firms by first week of February. That said, the interim results based on a sample of 300 firms spread across all industry sizes (Large, Medium and Small) throw some positive results, which underscores the fundamental optimism about the Indian economy, the apex chamber has said.