relevant costing

The salary to be paid to a market researcher who will oversee the development of a new product. This is a new post to be created especially for the new product but the $12,000 salary will be a fixed cost. Is this cost relevant to the decision to proceed with the development of the product?

Sir how come the above scenario not qualify under sunk cost? Generally the market research and development cost qualify as sunk cost. So how is this situation different from regular ones?