Retail chiefs are telling anyone who'll listen that soaring bills have put household spending on ice. Empty tills, cautious consumers, a sector doing it tough.

Here's what they're not mentioning: New Zealand's retail sector paid out $86.2 billion in wages and salaries last year. That's $2.3 billion more than in 2023. (Source: Stats NZ, earnings-by-industry)

Think about that for a moment. The industry complaining about weak spending just handed out an extra $2.3 billion to workers. That's not pocket change. That's roughly $44 million extra every single week flowing into the pay packets of shop assistants, warehouse staff, and checkout operators.

So where's the disconnect? If retail workers are earning more, why aren't they spending it in the shops where they work?

The trajectory tells the story. In 2020, during the depths of COVID uncertainty, retail wages hit $70.9 billion. By 2024, that figure had climbed 21.6% to $86.2 billion. Even accounting for inflation, that's real growth in a sector that supposedly can't catch a break.

But here's the thing about those soaring bills everyone's talking about: they're not optional. Power, rates, insurance, groceries. The money retail workers are earning isn't staying in their wallets long enough to turn into discretionary spending. It's spoken for before it arrives.

The retail sector now accounts for one of the largest wage pools in the country. Over 24 years, total earnings have grown every single year except during the Global Financial Crisis. This isn't a sector in decline. It's a sector watching its own workers earn more money while simultaneously being unable to afford what they're selling.

That $2.3 billion wage increase in 2024? It represents about 50,000 workers getting a $1,000 annual pay rise, or 25,000 workers getting $2,000 more. Spread across New Zealand's retail workforce of roughly 250,000 people, it's meaningful money.

Yet retailers are simultaneously lobbying against employment law changes that might give workers more bargaining power, as unions have pointed out this week. The same sector paying out record wages wants to make sure those wages don't grow any faster.

The problem isn't that New Zealanders don't have money. The retail wage data proves they're earning more than ever. The problem is that every extra dollar is already allocated to keeping the lights on and the fridge stocked. What retailers are calling a spending freeze is actually a cost-of-living crunch playing out in real time.

Eighty-six billion dollars. It's the biggest wage pool this sector has ever paid out. And it's not enough for workers to buy back what they're selling.