Wages and purchasing power
The rate for the job stopped keeping up in 2021.
Stats NZ's Labour Cost Index measures what employers pay for the same work over time. Adjusted for prices, it is about 6.4% below its March 2021 quarter level. This page shows the full picture, and works out what your own pay would need to be to match what it once bought.
What your pay would need to be
Enter what you earned in an earlier year. The first figure is what that salary would have to be today to buy the same things — the number worth taking into a pay conversation.
Gross salary, before tax. Years are compared using the March quarter.
The same job across New Zealand now typically pays $82,186 — leaving even a worker on the going rate about $5,576 short of where they started. Falling behind is the normal experience, not a personal failure.
Where do you sit?
Why this measure
The Labour Cost Index holds the job constant. It asks what an employer pays for the same work, the same hours and the same responsibilities as a year ago. It deliberately excludes promotions, extra hours and people moving into better-paid roles.
That makes it the right measure for a pay review, because a pay review is a conversation about the rate for your role rather than about your career as a whole. It is also the measure the OECD used when it ranked New Zealand last of 37 developed economies for real wage growth over five years. Broader earnings measures show a smaller fall — every one of them still shows pay growth trailing prices over this period.
Prices are the floor of a pay conversation, not the ceiling. What your work is worth also depends on your market, your performance and your responsibilities.
How to use this in a pay conversationCommon questions
Have wages kept up with inflation in New Zealand?
No. Stats NZ's Labour Cost Index rose 2.0% in the year to the March 2026 quarter, while consumer prices rose 3.1% over the same year. Measured from the March 2021 quarter, real wage rates are about 6.4% lower than they were.
What is a real wage rate?
A real wage rate is pay adjusted for the prices it has to cover. If the rate for a job rises 2% while prices rise 3%, the real wage rate has fallen about 1%: the same work buys less than it did.
Why use the Labour Cost Index rather than average earnings?
The Labour Cost Index tracks the rate paid for the same job, holding the work constant. Average earnings also move when people are promoted, change jobs or work longer hours. Since a pay review is a conversation about the rate for one role, the Labour Cost Index is the measure that matches the question.
How much would my salary need to be to keep up with inflation?
Multiply your old salary by the change in consumer prices since then. A salary of $70,000 in the March 2021 quarter would need to be about $87,800 by the March 2026 quarter to buy the same things. The calculator on this page does the arithmetic for any year back to 2008.
What a salary from one year is worth now
Labour Cost Index and consumers price index, Stats NZ, compared at the March 2026 quarter. The Labour Cost Index is published about two weeks after the CPI, so both figures are quoted for the most recent quarter that has each.