NZ's most highly paid cities revealed

Auckland has emerged as the best-paid city in New Zealand with an average annual salary of $73,121, a survey has revealed.

Keith Muirhead, head of Trade Me jobs, said the country's employment market had grown steadily in the first quarter of this year, with 9 per cent more jobs on offer on the website than in the previous quarter.

When the survey was last conducted in January, Wellington was the top-paid city, he said.

Mr Muirhead was not sure why Auckland had outranked Wellington, but he believed several advertisements for highly-paid positions could have increased the city's average salary.

The highest-paid positions included engineering and information technology roles with $150,000 annual salaries.

"Remembering that our data is based on job ads that are placed during that period, it really depends on what's happening in the market at any given time. What tends to drive those high-end roles are any sort of large engineering projects or big IT project where there's a lot of recruitment."

Wellington had seen growth in hospitality, manufacturing and trades, which generally had lower salaries.

Engineering, Printing & Manufacturing Union national secretary Andrew Little said Auckland traditionally offered jobs with higher salaries.

"There is always a bit of a margin for Auckland because it does tend to be a bit more expensive."

Mr Little said Auckland had not been as badly hit by the recession as other cities, which might explain some of the pay difference.

Aucklanders who were made redundant may have retained higher salaries when they moved into other work compared to those in smaller centres, where some people had been forced to move cities.

Employers in Auckland had not seemed to cut back as much as employers elsewhere.

"The economy seemed to hold up a little bit better than it did in other parts of the country."

Mr Little said overall, the job market was still reasonably static but employers who cut back on overtime and pay rises were starting to make some changes. He was not reading too much into the 9 per cent increase in job advertisements.

"I don't think there's an expansion going on. A lot of businesses cut right back to the bones in the last 18 months and they're now just starting to get back to their normal levels."

Peter Conway, secretary of the NZ Council of Trade Unions, said it was too soon to say if the increasing advertisements were the start of a positive trend but glimmers of hope were emerging.

The number of people being made redundant had dropped, as had the number of those receiving the unemployment benefit.

"We are starting to see a pick-up," he said. "We're not wanting to talk up a major bounce back but we are seeing small but positive signs in terms of employers wanting to employ more people."

He said more workers were also expecting pay raises this year.

AVERAGE WAGE

HIGHEST PAID:
1. Auckland City $73,121
2. Wellington City $70,435
3. Regional Southland $68,112

LOWEST PAID:
1. Napier $41,954
2. Masterton $42,713
3. Hastings $43,147