Businesses are worried about uncertainty over the government's plans to re-introduce industry-wide minimum pay rates.
Labour campaigned on a Fair Pay Agreement which would see minimum pay and conditions set across different sectors, rather than individual companies.
Business New Zealand chief executive Kirk Hope said it was not clear what the impact will be.
"The biggest issue at the moment is simply uncertainty, we haven't seen industry based agreements for a considerable period of time in New Zealand. Predominantly the areas where workers are lowly paid tend to be government funded so we really don't know what the impact will be on an industry where wages are set at a market level."
Kirk Hope said there was a misperception that New Zealand was a low wage economy, but that was not the case.
