Wages, salaries up 16% in year

Press, 25 August 1986, Page 3

Wages, salaries up 16% in year

Wellington reporter

Wages and salaries rose 16.1 per cent in the 12 months to last March, reflecting relatively high pay-round settlements during the last two years. In the year to March, 1985, wages and salaries as measured by the Statistics Department’s prevailing, ordinary-time rates index rose 8.8 per cent, while in the year before that no growth occurred.

The index fell in the middle months of last year but rose 2.4 per cent in the December quarter and 5.5 per cent in the March quarter of 1986. Rates paid in the private sector increased faster than in the public sector. The index for privatesector and local authority rates rose 17.2 per cent in the year to March while that for the public sector increased only 14.7 per cent.

The size of annual increases reflects the settlements towards the end of the wage round for 198485, and much of the most recent round. Some big settlements, however, were not paid until after March.