SALARY LEVELS IN N.Z.

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27987, 6 June 1956, Page 18

SALARY LEVELS IN N.Z.

CARE ADVOCATED IN COMPARISONS STUDY OF CONDITIONS OVERSEAS "One must be extremely careful about making salary comparisons in money amounts at current rates of exchange.” said Professor A. J. Danks, associate professor of Canterbury Umvers>ty College, when he was asked yesterday to comment on the relationship of New Zealand university and P?" o,esslon , a '„. S o"Iu scales to those in other countries. Such comparisons could, he said, be misleadi^esg ssoc j a tion message, from Dunedin printed in “The terday said that Mr J. M. McKenzie, a former assistant lecturer in physics at Otago University, would leave on Saturday to take un a post m Canada at £2500 a year, because he found that he could not earn more than £BOO or £9OO a year in New Zealand. He expects that his salary will quickly rise to £5OOO or £6OOO a year, or perhaps more. . “It is not only a question of wnat one can buy. but what other people can buy,” said Professor. Danks. That is, your standard of living relates to what your group in the community can habitually buy. It is rather the story of keeping up with the Joneses. One tends in one country or another to adopt the plumage of one salary or professional class. “Another important point is the relationship of your group to other classes—that is the question of where you stand in the hierarchy. “May be Misleading” “These effects all complicate the question so much for a professional man considering a move from one country to another that direct money comparisons may be misleading,” said Professor Danks. “A move to Canada almost certainly would mean a considerable increase in money wages if a man was not to feel that some how he had taken a step in the wrong “Then again the family man with young children is in a very different ■ position from the single man. There is. of course, the story of how far wel- [ fare State benefits may apply.”

Though all would agree that New Zealand salaries were low, it was unfair to compare salaries in different countries where infiltration had a marked influence, said Mr Paul Pascoe, a Christchurch architect, who recently returned from a tour of 15 countries, including the United States. “In America, ftor example, living costs are on the average double those of New Zealand,” he said, “so that anyone leaving here would need double his New Zealand salary to maintain the same standard of living. On these terms, then, our own scales are not quite so bad as they may appear.”