KEY POINTS:
If you're looking for a well-paid job don't get into politics, says former Wellington mayor-turned MP Mark Blumsky.
"To be honest I think I was getting more when I resigned from Hannahs," the ex-shoe salesman says.
Blumsky is only half-joking. Calculate the hours he actually puts in and his $130,000 basic salary as a backbencher starts to look increasingly meagre. As mayor he would be only slightly better off - the current incumbent is on $146,000 - though he'd also have the use of a car.
Blumsky's wife, Corinne, on the other hand, is doing extremely well. She is a partner in Wellington law firm AJ Park, a registered patent attorney, and a barrister and solicitor.
Which means, says the MP, "she gets way more than me".
Along with the IT sector the professions such as law - where partners can earn anything from $130,000 to $400,000-plus - have seen some of the biggest movements in pay rates over the past year, with increases averaging around 5 per cent. One reason, according to worker groups and recruiters, is that there are fewer graduates - leading to a skills shortage in those areas; another is the demand for experienced staff.
Also doing well are engineers. While most of us think of civil engineering as something our fathers or even grandfathers might have found exciting, hard hats and fluoro vests look set to become the new pin-stripe suit. The average hourly rate for structural and roading engineers now sits at around $50 and upwards.
Buoyed by the growth in non-residential construction and new transport and infrastructure projects, vacancies for the sector have grown by 92 per cent in a year.
Department of Labour figures show that in the year to March 2007, 46 per cent of all salary and ordinary-time wage rates rose by more than 3 per cent, with the median increase up 4.1 per cent, marginally lower than the historical high of 4.2 per cent recorded last quarter.
In the public sector wage growth was up 3.8 per cent in the year to March 2007 from 3.6 per cent in the year to December 2006 while private sector rates moved by 3 per cent.
Apart from IT and law, occupations to see significant rises were within the finance and insurance sector (up 5 per cent in the last quarter) and health services, up 4.9 per cent.
The most lucrative job-of-the-moment, however, appears to be IT. Employees in that sector have enjoyed a median pay rise of 7.3 per cent in the past 12 months, well ahead of the next hot occupational group, finance and accounting, which attracted a 5.5 per cent average.
And an ongoing shortage of IT talent in New Zealand looks set to cement it as one of the most lucrative industries to be in, both short and long term.
"There's a massive demand for IT workers," says Richard Manthel of Auckland recruitment consultants Robert Walters. He points out that despite close to 3000 graduates moving into the market each year, the intake at degree level has actually been dropping.
"One of the problems is that there's a perception that IT's a bit of a dead duck, so it's not something parents encourage their kids into. But one study out of Canterbury University shows we're going to have a shortfall of between 20,000 and 30,000 IT professionals in just the next few years."
Another problem is retention - global competition and the pull of the higher dollar offshore are a magnet for our newly qualified. With pay rates across the ditch generally 20 to 25 per cent higher (across all sectors) it's almost become a rite of passage for graduates to up sticks, says Mercer HR principal and ex-pat Aussie Martin Turner.
"The Tasman looks quite some people. I think it's some of the culture around doing an OE - and that's particularly the case in the engineering and IT sectors, where some of our clients have trouble hanging on to people who have done two to three years with them after uni and the lure of a year or three somewhere else is just too strong."
Apart from the wages, another plus is that the top tax rate only kicks in at $180,000 in Australia; here it's $60,000.
The skill shortage in both IT and engineering will continue as the baby boomer generation moves through the workforce, Turner says.
"The change in demographic is going to be enough to exacerbate the problem as people in that group take their skills and work habits out of the workforce."
Manthel notes, however, that recruiters are only just scratching the surface of the problem now.
His company picks up between five and 10 new IT roles daily.
There are, he says, literally thousands of IT jobs being advertised at any one time and many of the most specialised positions are being filled by overseas talent.
"And we need that expertise - in some cases you just can't run a project without it.
"So we've got people who have been brought in for very strategic IT positions who are being paid more than a CEO.
"They are guns for hire and they are here for 12 or 18 months on phenomenal wages. We shouldn't have to be doing that."
He says one study shows the top 10 most sought-after roles in New Zealand in a few years will all be in IT. The trouble is those roles don't yet exist, "so the difficulty is that the new report on the state of staffing in our secondary schools released just days ago picks up similar trends in teaching.
The Post Primary Teachers Association says its annual staffing survey shows almost 65 per cent of teaching positions advertised attract just one, or no suitable New Zealand applicants, with principals increasingly having to fill vacancies with overseas teachers or unqualified relievers.
Trades, too, are feeling the pinch when it comes to skilled labour.
The EPMU's Andrew Little says there is a huge shortage across the board, with electrical workers, fitters, plumbers and construction workers all reaping the benefits of a buoyant labour market.
"They're getting very healthy increases. A lot of school leavers who might be thinking about university should really think about going for those areas. After four or five years of initial training you could be on $70,000 or $80,000."
And for those determined to study at tertiary level, surveys of university leavers indicate the big money is being paid for commerce and management graduates - average first- year salaries are between $40,000 and $45,000 - and those with architecture degrees. Food and hospitality, and the creative arts, are at the bottom of the graduate pay scale.
