While white-collar workers around the country saw their salaries increase impressively last year, average wages didn't jump enough to keep up with the rising cost of new homes, according to a recently published survey.

　　The survey was conducted by 51job.com, a major job-hunting Website, which sent questionnaires out to 2 million of its users in eight large Chinese cities, including 650,000 white-collar workers in Shanghai.

　　It found that the average salary for office workers in Shanghai hit 46,797 yuan (US,638) last year, an increase of 8.83 percent from a year earlier.

　　The highest average salaries were in Shenzhen, followed closely by Shanghai.

　　While wages were up, the increase was slightly lower than the rise in the cost of new homes, which hit an average cost of 4,700 yuan per square meter as of December, a 9 percent jump from 2001.

　　"I currently earn 4,300 yuan a month, 400 yuan more than in 2001, but the price of real estate increased even faster, especially in downtown areas," said Nelly Chen, a local tax professional.

　　The average wage increase did, however, greatly outpace the rising cost of living in Shanghai. The city's consumer price index, which measures how many goods people can buy with their monthly income, rose a mere 0.5 percent last year. While the CPI incorporates the cost of renting an apartment, it doesn't include the cost of purchasing a new home.

　　Employees in the pharmaceutical sector enjoyed the highest salaries last year, followed by those engaged in energy and chemistry, information technology, consumer goods, manufacturing and the electronic sector.

　　Locals with a strong grasp of English tend to earn more money than those who can't speak the language, while work experience plays a more important role than education background in determining salaries, according to the survey.