NEARLY 70 percent of Shanghai residents said in a survey that their salary did not increase or that it fell in 2010, but most of them think a pay rise is possible this year, according to the Shanghai Statistics Bureau yesterday.

Only 29 percent of the respondents said their salary rose in 2010, while 50.4 percent said their salaries were flat and 15.6 percent said their wages fell. The remaining 5 percent said they were not aware of changes, if any, in their salary package.

The results were collated from an online survey conducted by the bureau which interviewed 2,531 people. Nearly half of the people earned between 2,001 yuan (US$303) and 4,000 yuan and many of them were dissatisfied with their salary last year.

"The continuing sluggish performance of companies after the global financial crisis was the main reason for less salary for some residents," the bureau said.

The survey found 43.2 percent of respondents working in foreign-invested firms said their salaries jumped last year from a year earlier, more than the 21.6 percent in state-owned enterprises and 26.9 percent in private firms.

The survey also found only less than 10 percent of people were satisfied with their salary, while 33.3 percent said they were "not content" and another 34.4 percent were "very dissatisfied."

Cherry Bao, an employee at a private trading company in Shanghai, said her salary package did not change last year.

"I once wonder how the statistics bureau got that figure which showed such a big jump in people's disposable income," Bao said. "It seems everything is becoming more expensive, and the only thing that does not increase is our wages."

Shanghai's consumer prices jumped 3.1 percent on an annual basis last year, with December's figure surging 4.5 percent.

According to an earlier report by the bureau, the disposable income of Shanghai residents jumped 10.4 percent from a year earlier to 31,838 yuan last year.

But people surveyed displayed confidence about the future.

About 61 percent said they expected a pay rise this year, and 42.2 percent even looked forward to a rise of more than 10 percent.