Wellington, Dec 7 NZPA - Slightly more than half of employers in a new survey report giving no wage rises at all during the past year, as financial crisis roiled the world economy.

The Employers and Manufacturers Association (Northern) end of year employment round up survey, carried out late last month with responses from 759 businesses, found 51 percent of respondents gave no wage rise during the past 12 months.

Of those employers who did pay more, the average rise was 3.3 percent.

The survey also found 53 percent of respondents made workers redundant to reduce costs, while 55 percent used attrition, 30 percent cut working hours, and 9 percent reduced pay rates.

A possible indicator of some hope for people looking for work is that 32 percent of employers think they will increase permanent employee numbers in the first half of 2010, with 40 percent expecting to in the second half of the year.

EMA employment services manager David Lowe said employers top priorities for employment law changes were the Holidays Act and personal grievance laws.

"The Government has announced reviews on both and has certainly got it right," Mr Lowe said.

The 90-day employment trial period was proving successful, with 72 percent of the 414 employers with fewer than 20 staff in the survey using the trial periods in their employment offers. Of those employers, 48 or 11 percent had terminated an employee under the provision.

Sixty percent of businesses covered -- both large and small -- reported they were doing very well or doing all right, while 23 percent said they were coming right, 16 percent were concerned and 2 percent thought they may not survive.