Pay Trends - June 2018
15 June 2018The signalled increases in the Minimum Wage are significant at around 7% per annum for the next 3 years. The Pay Equity settlement for aged care workers set a trend with increases of over 20%. Following on from that a number of "equal pay" claims have been filed in the ERA and/or form part of public sector bargaining covering part time teachers, mental health support workers, social workers and education support workers – see more.
NZNO has now (18 June) rejected its latest pay offer for nurses of 3% backdated to 4 June, 3% from 6 August 2018 and a further 3% on 6 August 2019 totalling 9.3%, plus an upfront lump sum of $2,000. Slightly larger initial increases were offered for Senior Nurses, Midwives & Nurse Practitioners. New steps will result in a nurse or midwife currently on step 5 ($66,755) moving to $77,386 on 2 December 2019. This is a 15.9% increase on the base rates for an additional $200 a week and $10,631 p.a. NZNO is calling for mediation and/or facilitation. You can access more information on the pay offer here. You can find more information on the ratification outcome here..
For primary teachers, graduates with a teaching degree will see a cumulative increase of 14.7% over three years ($47,980 to $55,030) and a 14.2% cumulative increase over three years for graduates with a subject degree and graduate teaching diploma ($49,588 to $56,638). Teachers on the next steps (6-11) will see a cumulative increase of between 6.5 to 13.7 percent to base salaries over three years. Teachers on the maximum step (12) will receive a cumulative increase of 6.1 percent over three years ($75,949 to $80,599).
see: https://education.govt.nz/news/ministrys-statement-on-primary-teachers-collective-bargaining/
Meanwhile, in the private sector with the CPI at 1.1% and projected to stay under 1.6% to the end of 2019, and the Labour Cost Index for the year ending March 2018 at 1.9%, in most cases increases will be in the range of 2.0-2.75%. Strategic Pay survey data suggests rem movements in 2018/19 will be 2.4% for General market and 2.6% for the private sector, which is lower than last year.