It suggests the strong 1.5 per cent jump in real private consumption in the December 2012 quarter will prove to be a flash in the statistical pan.
Among the 13 per cent of salaries and wage rates in the LCI survey which increased during the March quarter, the median rise was 2.4 per cent, the smallest for 12 years.
However, the LCI measures increases in pay rates for the same quantity and quality of labour. Rises reflecting experience, promotion or otherwise related to the performance of an individual employee are filtered out.
The unadjusted LCI, which leaves them in, rose 0.7 per cent in the quarter (for the private sector) and 3.3 per cent for the year.
Bank of New Zealand economist Doug Steel said that implied decent real wage growth, given annual inflation of just 0.9 per cent.
"Real wage growth goes some way to explaining why consumers are confident. After all, it is not so much what you get paid, but the purchasing power of that money," he said.
For construction workers in Canterbury, wages have risen 4.3 per cent over the past year, more than twice as much as in the rest of the country, but the latest quarterly increase, 0.5 per cent, was the smallest for a year.
"Wage costs are clearly increasing in the region, but for now seem to have remained localised," ASB economist Daniel Smith said.
"The smaller increase in the March quarter also suggests that wage cost increases are not getting out of hand."
The construction sector recorded the largest increase in employment in the QES, which is a survey of firms rather than households.
In full-time equivalent terms the number of construction workers rose 9100 or 9.9 per cent over the past year, while the number of health workers rose by 4600 or 3.1 per cent and the manufacturing workforce fell 3400 or 1.9 per cent.
Regional contrasts were also evident in the data.
Westpac economist Felix Delbruck said employment was up 7 per cent in Canterbury compared to 2.4 per cent in Auckland and 1.7 per cent in Wellington, while shrinking 0.6 per cent in the rest of New Zealand.
"Along with the soft headline wage result and lacklustre overall jobs growth, this will leave the Reserve Bank comfortable keeping the official cash rate on hold for now," Delbruck said.
"As time goes on we do expect the accelerating Canterbury rebuild and a rising housing market to result in broader inflation pressures and prompt interest rate rises - but not until next year."