It has been specified by the Statistics New Zealand Labor Cost Index released today that a much faster growth was noticed in public sector wages as compared to private sector wages in the last year.    

An increase of 3.3% in salary and wage rates (including overtime) in the year to the March 2009 quarter was recorded by the index, which comes as lesser than the revised increases of 3.5% and 4% in the years to the December and September 2008 quarters, respectively.

However the figures have shown that the burden of the wage slowdown is not being shared equally.  

An increase by 4.3% was seen in the salary and wage rates (including overtime) for the public sector in the year to the March 2009 quarter. It should be mentioned that the increase has come to scene in spite of the recession and deteriorating government accounts.

On the contrary, an increase by only 3.1% was seen in private sector salary and wage rates (including overtime) during the same period.  

It should be mentioned that the overall wage growth in the March quarter was the slowest in two years: salary and ordinary time wage rates increased 0.6%, while overtime wage rates rose 0.8%.

“The median increase for all surveyed salary and ordinary time wage rates that rose in the year to the March 2009 quarter was 4.2; the mean increase was 5.7 percent,” said a report.

(Via TopNews New Zealand. Contributed by Manish Verma)