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Advertised salaries are growing at a slower pace due to strong competition for a limited number of jobs, new data shows.
Employment website SEEK has found average advertised salaries grew 3.7 percent in the year ended August, down from 4.4 percent in the previous quarter.
SEEK country manager Rob Clark said with more people applying for fewer jobs, the rule of supply and demand was holding back salary increases.
"If you're an employer you've got more choice and therefore that allows you to have more flexibility on salary rates. And if you're an employee and you're looking for work, it's more competitive out there, so you might be prepared to forego the salary that you may have hoped [for] previously."
Salary growth slows
The education and healthcare sectors recorded the greatest growth year-on-year, owing in large part to wage rises from collective agreements coming into effect.
"Whereas at the other end of the scale, you've got large industries like hospitality and tourism and retail growing just at 2 percent year on year," Clark said.
Other areas seeing good salary growth included "some of the more complex engineering and medical roles" with high demand and low supply, as well as roles in insurance, consulting, legal services, banking and accounting.
Media was one area salaries on offer had gone down, as well as advertising, real estate and mining.
Clark said salaries were likely to stay constrained for a while, following the Reserve Bank's deliberate recession to get inflation under control and the approach of the Christmas season.
"Unfortunately it just takes a lot of time to work its way through the cycle… It's really an employer's market at the moment. You've just got a lot more candidates applying for fewer jobs that gives you more choice that gives you more leverage.
"And the high, high salaries that perhaps people expected some 18 months and two years ago are much harder to find at the moment."
Breaking it down by region, Canterbury had the highest year-on-year advertised salary growth (4.4 percent) followed by the rest of the North Island (4.4 percent) and Auckland (3.6 percent).
Dragging the chain were Wellington (3.4 percent) and the rest of the South Island (2.3 percent).