The 2010 wage guideline in Beijing was released on Wednesday, stating an average salary jump of 11 percent.

The wage guideline, which includes an average, upper and lower level, is an annual requirement from the government to enterprises to raise employee salaries.

It stated that all enterprises in Beijing in 2010 must raise wages by between the lower and upper limits of 3 and 16 percent.

According to the Beijing Human Resources and Social Security Bureau, only enterprises that can prove they were affected by the financial crisis can select a different rate, after negotiation with trade unions, but they must pay at least the minimum wage, which was set in July 1 as a monthly salary of 960 yuan.

Due to the financial crisis, the municipal government did not release a similar guideline in 2009, but in 2008, the increase was 0.5 percent higher than this year for all three levels.

This is a result of the GDP increment in 2009 being slower than 2007 by 2.2 percentage points and a reduction in the CPI (consumer price index) by 3.7 percentage points.

"I am looking forward to my pay rise this year because last year I only got a few hundred yuan more," said Hu Peng, an employee at a foreign accounting firm in Beijing.

Hu said his wage jumped by 30 percent in his second year of work in his company, but 2009 was a bad year.

He said some of his colleagues quit in early 2010 but he carried on because he hoped his salary will be better this year.

The bureau also released "human cost" statistics for every industry in Beijing - detailing the complete cost of keeping an employee, including salaries and benefits - as well as wage guides for some specific positions.

The banking sector had the highest annual labor cost of 176,771 yuan per person, with the rental and business service industry, such as rental car companies and employment agencies, scraping the bottom at 27,439 yuan.

For specific salary guides, chief financial officers were said to claim the highest annual average at 362,867 yuan, almost 13 times that of a cleaner, the lowest, at 28,249 yuan.

The income gap was reported to be the most significant problem for employees, according to an investigation by the Beijing municipal federation of trade unions.

"We are searching for measures to reduce it and the wage guideline is one such approach," said Huang Wei, director of the labor rights department of the Beijing municipal federation of trade unions.

The Beijing Human Resource and Social Security Bureau demands enterprises raise workers' wages immediately and fairly across the office hierarchy.