Reliance Industries has cut its headcount for third year in a row and is mulling a salary model where pay is based on accountability and responsibility of its staff.

The company's staff strength fell by 704 workers during the fiscal year ended March 31, 2011, and stood at 22,661 employees.

RIL has disclosed its latest headcount in its 2010-11 annual report, where it also disclosed a new compensation model being mulled over at the company.

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"On the variable pay front, efforts are afoot to move towards accountability and responsibility driven variable pay programmes designed uniquely for various levels," it added.

The company's headcount stood at 23,365 employees at the end of fiscal ended March 31, 2010 -- during which its employee strength had fallen by 1314.

During the fiscal year 2008-09 also, the company's headcount had fallen by 808 people.

RIL is one of the biggest employers among the non-IT private sector companies in the country and the company's profitability has been on a sharp uptrend in recent years.

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During 2008-09, RIL's total headcount had declined for the first time in six years, despite the company hiring more than 1,500 engineers that year.

The steepest fall so far has been in 2003-04, when the headcount fell from 12,915 to 11,358 employees.

During 2006-07 it rose by a massive 12,156 people while in 2007-08 the headcount rose by close to 791 employees.

Along with its subsidiaries such as Reliance Retail, the company had a total workforce in excess of 48,000 at the end of 2007-08, according to the company's annual filing for that year for its shareholders.

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RIL has not disclosed specific numbers of employees of subsidiaries for the years 2008-09, 2009-10 and 2010-11.

RIL's average employee age stood at 41 years during 2010-11, unchanged from the level in previous fiscal.

The average age of employees at the company had increased from 34 years to 39 years during 2008-09.

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Fresh from posting a record turnover, Reliance Industries is looking at petrochemicals, consumer retail and telecommunications business as drivers for growth, chairman and managing director Mukesh Ambani said.

"We will augment our commitment to Indian markets by investing in new petrochemical capacity, organised retailing and digital services," Ambani said in the covering letter of his company's latest annual report.

Reliance achieved a record turnover exceeding Rs 258,000 crore ($58 billion) and a higher net profit of Rs 20,286 crore ($4.5 billion) in the 2010-11 financial year.

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"In 2010-11, Reliance attained the largest profit growth in its history with record operating and financial results from each of the three core segments of petrochemicals, refining and marketing and oil and gas," Ambani said.

"We are gearing up for the next phase of growth through a combination of our own initiatives and forging new partnerships with leading companies," Ambani said.

Reliance has 'embarked on a major capacity creation initiative in petrochemicals,' encouraged by strong demand forecasts for petrochemicals and fibres, to become 'the world's largest integrated polyester producer'.

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Ambani said the company's new projects 'represent the largest-ever investment by Reliance in a sector' and the biggest capital commitment in the global petrochemicals segment as well.

"Our investments in organised retailing are anticipated to be significant and will transform the Indian market," he added.

On telecom, he said: "We envisage that significant value will be created for consumers as well as operators with new services and connectivity."

During the 2010-11 fiscal, Reliance entered into three partnerships on shale gas in North Amercia.

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"The joint ventures are expected to accrue resources in excess of 10 trillion cubic feet and make a meaningful contribution to our earnings within the next few years," he said.

On the company selling 30 per cent of its stake in 23 oil and gas exploration blocks, including the all-important eastern offshore KG-D6 fields, to UK's BP Plc, Ambani said

Europe's second biggest oil firm will make available 'its sub-surface technical expertise to maximise recoverable resources.'

Reliance has seen output from the KG-D6 fields drop to less than 50 million standard cubic metres per day from 61.5 mmscmd in March, 2010, due to reservoir complexities. It is now banking on BP to salvage the situation.