WELLINGTON, Sept. 3 (Xinhua) -- Around 2,000 New Zealand core public service employees will be in a better position to make ends meet after receiving a new, 2018 Living Wage, hourly rate of 20.55 NZ dollars (13.58 U.S. dollars), Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Monday.
This follows the government's announcement in June that the new hourly rate, or annualized equivalent of 42,744 NZ dollars, including full-time, part-time and casual employees, would be implemented as a one-off pay adjustment by Sept. 1.
"This is about fairness. Everyone deserves to be paid a fair amount for the work they do, and to earn enough to have a decent standard of living," Ardern said in a statement.
"While we're continuing to lift the minimum wage for all workers, our commitment to pay all public service staff at least the 2018 living wage is about leading from the front," she said, adding she wanted the government, in its role as employer, to be part of the solution to the imbalance in peoples' pay.
"We have a wide program of work to ensure those on lower and middle incomes start to see some of the benefits of a growing economy," Ardern said, adding more than 164,000 people will benefit from an increase to the minimum wage to 16.5 NZ dollars on April 1 and 20 NZ dollars an hour by 2021.
The decisions to stop performance pay to state sector CEOs and freezing MP pay this year were also part of the program to focus on lower and middle-income earners rather than those at the top, the prime minister said. (1 NZ dollar equals to 0.66 U.S. dollar)
