A key issue for all local business in 2021 will be payroll costs. Remuneration specialists Strategic Pay recently released their November Remuneration and Business briefing, highlighting expectations and concerns of employers across the country.
Cathy Hendry, senior consultant for Strategic Pay in Tauranga, said for its latest survey, 230 responding organisations were asked to forecast the overall payroll increase anticipated for the year to September 2021.
The overall average rise in payroll anticipated by the respondents was 1.9 percent, with 10 percent of organisations reporting that they still didn’t know what increases would look like due to the pandemic.
“General staff are being forecast to get the higher of the increases, in line with commentary we have seen come through from our pulse surveys, where organisations were mainly wanting to focus on their legal commitments, for example with living wage or minimum wage movements, and then not much else,” said Hendry.
“As we move up the staff levels, we see smaller increases, until we get to just over one percent forecast for CEOs and senior executives. Whether this will actually flow through into the salary increases provided going forward – we shall see.”
