Rotorua wages rise, but is it more than your costs?

The median wage has risen, but you might not be any better off. Photo/File

The average Bay worker has $103 more in their pocket each week compared with four years ago, but economists say rising household costs and longer work hours might cancel any real increase out.

Latest Statistics New Zealand figures showed the median wage in the whole Bay of Plenty - half earn more, half earn less - was $843 a week, or about $44,000 a year. This was up from $740 per week four years earlier, about 14 per cent.

Figures weren't available specifically for Rotorua, but Census 2013 showed the median income in Rotorua was slightly higher than the average across the region.

Chief executive of Destination Rotorua Michelle Templer said Rotorua had benefited significantly from the growth of tourism, which had created jobs and incomes for many people.

"We've had a number of years of growth, and that ongoing growth generates confidence. From that, we're seeing quite a bit of reinvestment in the tourism offerings.

"Reinvestment in the tourism sector is a real priority - capital expenditure. We'd also like to see more high-value tourists come through. We'd like them to stay longer and spend more."

Ms Templer said innovative solutions to grow traditional sectors would also help bring more money into the local economy.

"Our forest and wood processing sector is a really critical underpinning, along with agriculture.

"We're a good forest-growing region, and with Scion [research institute] based here it just seems like the right place to base forward-looking businesses around using wood and wood fibre.

"I think we need to keep striving towards that and being innovative and finding solutions to some of those challenges."

Economists say, along with housing cost pressures, price growth for goods and services of about 2 per cent per year begin to add up and eat into any extra income.

Living costs also increased proportionally more for lower-expenditure households and beneficiaries than higher-expenditure households, Statistics NZ figures showed.

Noticeable increases in common goods prices, such as a 14 per cent increase in the cost of fruit and vegetables in the last year, could lead people to believe overall prices were growing at a much faster rate than 2.2 per cent.

Council of Trade Unions economist Bill Rosenberg said low annual average wage increases of about 2 per cent, although broadly equal to inflation, were hurting workers, especially low-wage earners.

"What we're seeing is people working more hours and also more people getting jobs.

"People are feeling fairly pushed because of various pressures in the household budget and deciding both [parents] will have to work to make ends meet.

"At the moment, I'm very concerned we're trapped in a low-wage rut that's very difficult to get out of in the current circumstances.

"It's not good for New Zealand because it encourages low productivity."

Workers nationwide worked an extra 0.6 per cent in the last year.

The consumer price index recently rose higher than wage growth for the first time in six years. This meant costs of goods and services were likely to rise slightly more than wage growth, at least in the near future.

Westpac senior economist Satish Ranchhod said this would likely put some pressure on wages, and workers would start to feel a pinch.

"Consumer price tends to start rising and then that gets factored into wage growth, and combine that with a firming economy, we should see some wage growth in the next couple of years."