And not just Infosys. In every other IT company it is the same story. In Satyam, it was 66.70 per cent, Huges Software had 53.03 per cent and Infotech Enterprises, 54.52 per cent.

What is more surprising is that even in a situation of slowdown in growth rates the Infocom industry is still paying more. In Infosys, the wage bill as percentage of expenses went up from 63.16 to 71.41 over a nine-month comparison at a time of lower growth of orders__clearly indicating rising wages. It is no different for Satyam Computers or Huges Software.

Tata Steel has some 35,000 employees but Infosys, with about onetenth the employees, had a total wage bill of Rs. 845 crore as against Rs. 825.86 crore of Tata Steel. But assuming that the number of employees is far lower in the Infocom industries compared to steel and other products, the high wage bill in the former clearly indicates higher per capita wages in the Infocom units.

Whether in Infocom or steel, across all businesses, wages are increasingly getting related to the knowledge level of the employees. This is natural in any economy in which businesses face increasing competition. Knowledge creates new products and services and knowledge enables reduction in product inputs and economies in processes that ultimately reduce costs and improve competitiveness.

If this Economic Times study is some indicator of the trends in the industry, it reveals the rising role of knowledge workers in the Indian economy, even though in terms of total production or productivity our economy is far below the level of any developed country. Services in the economy today contribute more than 50 per cent to the GIP. No wonder Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha in his latest Budget has further widened the base of the tax on services. The increasing presence of knowledge workers and their rising contribution to the economy is changing the very character of businesses.