Pay cuts for one in five staff
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One in five jobs has seen a drop in pay this year with new employees often hired on lower rates than the staff they replaced, latest figures show.
The Employers and Manufacturers Association's (EMA) annual wage and salary survey found that 9 per cent of jobs had received no increase in pay this year, while 22 per cent had had decreases.
The average overall pay increase was 2.5 per cent, with most increases being of less than 1 per cent.
Northern EMA employment services manager David Lowe said new employees were often hired on lower rates than the staff they replaced.
Pay rates in some jobs were hit harder than others, with the rates in food retail dropping 3.3 per cent, while engineers had a 5.6 per cent increase as companies sought to retain skilled workers.
"Businesses know that skills are the key to their recovery," Mr Lowe said.
Business Roundtable executive director Roger Kerr said the survey results reflected continuing difficulties in many parts of the economy. "There's clearly some major adjustment still called for in the economy to get more resources into our export industries."
Companies had set realistic pay increases to keep unemployment down, he said.
"They've had to cut costs in order to preserve the viability of the firm and jobs, and that's a sensible reaction.
"It makes good sense for wage adjustments to be moderate to preserve employment."
NZPA
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This is a good time for the Gov. to step in and put some sanity back into the outragious living costs that burden low income earners & there familys . Price fixing on essential commoditys & basic food is badly needed its just a free for all at present every single thing you touch is way over the top in relation to the present wage structure . its totaly unbalanced previous & present govs . do absoloutley nothing to address it . There not interested at all . They standby and let wages go down & living costs up . They need to take control . Stop low income workers from being ripped off .
Right in the middle of the recession, I got a pay rise of 10-15%. Call me an a***ole but long live the recession if this is to continue :).
No wonder people a fleeing NZ for for higher paying jobs overseas! I will never move back to NZ as the pay is too low, high living costs etc...
Remember John "we would love to see wages drop" Key anyone? Got his wish didn't he, funny that.
I agree with the other comments - top executives are being greedy arrogant bullies, being in control of their companies' finances and taking huge salaries and bonuses themselves while everybody else suffers.
The worst thing is that they genuinely believe that they deserve those huge salaries. Admittedly, it does take skill to run a business, but their salaries are typically 10 - 20 times the average wage which is unfair because their skills are not 10 - 20 times more valuable than the people actually doing the day-to-day work of the company.
And the bus drivers rejected an 11.5% pay rise over 3 years...
This is sure to close the gap with salaries and wages in Australia. Our firm cut staff and expect us to do the increased work load with no pay rises in the near future even though they had a good year with increased turnover - go figure. Management never misses out only the workers, there needs to be some sort of cost of living wage rises made compulsory or else many of us will not see any movement in our pay rates for years if then.
It takes a lot of money to pay the CEO, someone has to make a sacrifice and it sure as heck isn't going to be the top dog(s). Let the lower paid staff take the cuts.
What a load of hogs wash i work in finance so i see the salary budgets and i can tell you the little guy misses out all the time while the senior management get bonus and pay rises every year. we got told due to the difficulties this year no one will be getting a pay rise or bonus than i see yet again lies some senior managers got more than i make in a year yet if they had of spread this around all the little guys here would have got something! The turn over in some areas here is unbelievable and they wonder why and there is still the attitude of the old boys club, if your not in it your not going no where so much for change for the better.
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Recession? Hell, I'm rolling in it here!