THE average pay rise rate in China will drop by 0.2 percentage points to 6.7 percent in 2017 from last year, according a survey report released over the weekend by HR service provider China International Intellectech (Shanghai) Corporation.

The rate in Shanghai is expected to be 6.4 percent, down from 6.7 percent last year and the growth rate in second-tier cities will still be higher than in first-tier cities, said the report.

“The slower pay rise is not surprising as the whole economic growth is slowing down and the employers are also suffering from narrowing profit margins,” said Zhou Jing, manager of the CIIC research center. “Meanwhile, employers are also bearing increasing burden of human resource costs as employees’ pay had been risen fast in previous years.”

With that backdrop, though Internet industry took the lead with 9.2 percent of pay rise last year, it is expected to continue on the top with 8.8 percent this year, while pay in manufacturing will grow much slower at 6.1 percent, 0.2 percentage points lower than last year, according to the report.

Real estate took the second place last year with 8.8 percent, but it will be replaced by high-tech, the only industry that is predicted by the survey report to have higher pay rise this year than last year.

In subdivided areas, the banking sector is expected to have employees’ pay increased by only 5.4 percent this year, the first time for it to be below 6 percent. On contrast, internet finance is booming and employees in this area might have 10.2 percent of salary growth, though it is still slowing down compared to the level at 10.5 percent last year.

Algorithm engineer was one of the most popular jobs in 2016 and enjoyed more than 15 percent of pay rise and the average cash earning of senor algorithm engineers was nearly 580,000 yuan per year.

Last year, the average starting pay for college graduates was up 5 percent from the previous year in general, also slower than previous years. It was 4,422 yuan per month for undergraduates and 6,320 for masters.

But graduates of key majors and top universities were still popular and enjoyed starting pay much nearly twice of the average levels. According to the CIIC survey, the average starting pay of bachelors majoring in finance from top universities was 8,125 yuan per month, while financing masters in top universities kicked off their career with 11,550 yuan a month on average.