About 64 percent of employers in China plan to raise annual bonuses for their employees in 2013, while another 23 percent mull cuts, according to a report released by Career International Consulting on Tuesday.

The overall increase will be slight, as 47 percent of respondents said the bonus increase will be less than 10 percent, and only 3 percent plan to offer raises of more than 20 percent, according to the report, based on a survey of 847 companies in China conducted in late November.

"The slight rise in this year's bonus is mainly due to the global economic slowdown and China's tightening of public expenses," Feng Lijuan, chief consultant at human resources service provider 51job.com, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

About 70 percent of State-owned enterprises (SOEs) surveyed said they would raise their employees' year-end bonuses, higher than that of private firms and multinationals, said the report.

The year-end bonus is a large part of SOE employees' annual income, so many SOEs use the bonus as a way to increase employees' incomes, the report noted.

"In comparison, a growing number of multinationals, which have been dragged down by the global downturn, began to cut staff or adjust business strategies in China this year, so they are less interested in raising employees' bonuses," Feng said.

Cash is still the main form of the year-end bonus especially for multinationals, while SOEs and private firms prefer to award their employees with a combination of cash and shopping cards, the report said.

The real estate, e-commerce and IT sectors rank in the top three industries in terms of the proportion of companies that plan to raise their employees' year-end bonuses, according to the report.

For a new architect, it is common to get an annual bonus of 30,000 yuan ($4,941) to 40,000 yuan. A senior architect's bonus could reach over 100,000 yuan, and a top architect's year-end bonus could even exceed more than 1 million yuan, Chongqing Evening News reported on Tuesday, citing a novice architect.

The annual bonus not only plays an important role in retaining and encouraging talent, but has also become a barometer of business performance, experts said.

"A company's year-end bonus is always consistent with its business performance especially the profit," Feng said, noting that the banking industry, whose employees used to enjoy high year-end bonuses, has fallen out of the top five given China's efforts to liberalize interest rates.

Employees still expect higher year-end bonuses despite the economic slowdown in China.

"My annual bonus was around 35,000 yuan last year, equaling three months' worth of my salary," a department manager in a Beijing-based futures firm, who declined to be named, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

"Our year-end bonus is decided by the company's profit and personal performance," he said. "As my company has performed better this year, I expect a higher bonus."

"My colleague in the core division of our company got an annual bonus that was as high as two year's worth of salaries," an employee surnamed Luo in a Shanghai-based online gaming company told the Global Times on Tuesday.

"I cannot get that much because I am in the support division, but I still expect a rise this year," she said.

About 60 percent of employees said their year-end bonus fell between 10,000 and 50,000 yuan in 2012, and another 26.6 percent said their bonus was between 5,000 to 10,000 yuan last year, according to a report released by recruitment website lietou.com on December 9, based on a survey on 4,730 respondents conducted in November.

The survey also showed nearly 65 percent of respondents were unsatisfied with their year-end bonuses in 2012, and one-third of respondents expected year-end bonuses to be equal to three months' worth of salaries.