Source: Radio New Zealand
Only half of New Zealand workers reported getting a pay rise last year, but some people are more likely to get them than others, new Seek data shows.
The recruitment site said the industries that were most likely to get a pay rise in the past 12 months were industrial, where 57 percent of people received a pay rise, professional services, at 53 percent, and technology, at 52 percent.
Seek country manager Rob Clark said pay rises in the professional sector were often driven by performance and benchmarking metrics.
“You’ve often got supply and demand challenges and they are quite highly skilled roles so you typically get movement in regard to salary when those factors are in play.
“Then you’ve also got industrial and that’s probably because we’ve seen a bit of a surge in terms of demand for some roles in that space.”
The most common way for people to have received a pay rise in the past 12 months was staying with the same company and experiencing a company-wide pay increase.
Just under a quarter of those who received a pay increase with the same company had some sort of performance-based rise.
While half of all respondents said they had a pay rise, 73 percent received 5 percent or less. Fewer than half of people were happy with their current salary but two-thirds were not confident asking for a pay rise.
Company-wide pay rises were most common in the public sector, and retail, hospitality and sports.
They were less common in construction and technology. Seek said performance-based pay increases were more common in these industries, with 46 percent of workers in both sectors receiving performance-based rises.
Only 5 percent of people who had a pay rise had received one because they moved to a new company but they were more likely to have a bigger pay increase. People moving to a new employer were three times more likely to have an increase of more than 10 percent than those who stayed put.
Clark said it was likely to remain a tricky time for those navigating pay conversations.
“If you’d asked a month or two ago you’d probably be a little more confident because we were sort of on an up, and consumer and business confidence was improving. I think that’s come to a head in the last month or so.
“I think a cautionary approach is the likely way forward for a lot of organisations. Having said that, taking a longer-term view is often useful if you can.
“We know that pay increases have a big influence on staff engagement, performance, retention, et cetera. It’s a tricky balance because I guess the big question everyone’s asking is just how long will this last, and how quickly can we sort of get back on our recovery?”
In order, the generations most likely to have received a pay rise in the past 12 months were millennials, at 54 percent, Gen Z at 48 percent and Gen X at 45 percent.
Millennials were most likely to have requested a pay rise but both they and Gen Z were much less comfortable about doing so than Gen X.
Clark said it was probably a reflection of them being earlier in their careers.
“[Millennials] are asking. We think that’s probably a function of being possibly the most financially constrained… first mortgage, kids… that cohort is definitely trying to get on the front foot an have the conversation.
“A lot of what we uncover in this piece of research is it’s really important to have the conversation, even if the outcome isn’t necessarily what you’re looking for. It benefits both the employee and the employer if they’re just having a conversation about salary, because it could provide great context for the employee as to why they’re making those decisions…employees obviously want to be heard and have their say.
“On the other hand… the moment employees most need relief is often at the same time as employers can least afford it. And, you know, you might argue we’re heading into something akin to that at the moment.”
He said people could make use of benchmarking tools to see how their pay compared to others.
That could give them confidence to ask for more money. They could also consider what non-financial benefits they would value.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand