The new Government will have its first data to digest tomorrow when Statistics New Zealand releases its labour market figures for the three months ended September.

Although the previous government was still in power for most of the quarter, the new Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety, Iain Lees-Galloway, will get an indication of the work which lies ahead.

Already, trade unions are expecting significantly higher wage rises than occurred under National.

ASB economist Kim Mundy said the cost-push influences and government policy changes were expected to underpin future wage growth.

''Our back-of-the-envelope estimates of the first round impacts from the pay equity settlements and minimum wage increases suggest they will add 0.3% to 0.5% to annual wage inflation over the next few years.

''The full impact on wages could be larger if this spills over to wage demands in other sectors.''

There would be considerable pressure on the new coalition government to contain public sector wage settlements, she said.

Private sector employers might also find they had difficulty retaining key staff.

The ASB expected employment from the Household Labour Force Survey to increase by 0.9% in the quarter and 2.6% for the year.

A more modest climb in the labour force participation rate to 70.2% was expected to lower the unemployment rate to 4.7%, a nine-year low.

Low levels of labour underutilisation should confirm the labour market remained tight in the third quarter, Ms Mundy said.

The second-quarter dips in employment and workforce participation looked to be anomalous given still-solid survey employment intentions.

ANZ senior economist Sharon Zollner said signals on labour demand had become more mixed recently.

Nationwide, job ads growth had started to slow, falling five straight months in Auckland.

Firms' hiring intentions were also well off their highs.

Conversely, firms said finding skilled staff was still a serious problem and even finding reliable unskilled staff was difficult.

The ANZ's preferred wage measure, the private sector Labour Cost Index, was expected to rise 0.9% in the quarter, which would mean annual wage inflation lifted to 2% annually, the highest since 2012.

That was roughly double its typical quarterly rise but it had a strong one-off element from the previous government's settlement with care and support workers.

The more important question surrounded the subsequent spill-overs to related sectors, she said.

''We are building in quarterly rises in private sector wages of around 0.5% over coming quarters whereas 0.4% has been more typical.''

That was not all the impact of the settlement, as wages had other favourable conditions. The unemployment rate was estimated to below the ANZ estimate of about 5% of the non-accelerating inflation rate of employment measure, Ms Zollner said.

The ANZ had become more circumspect on the near-term growth outlook as the economy grappled with a weaker housing market and policy uncertainty at the same time as it faced changing drivers of growth.

There was potential to see labour demand cool, and that was being seen already in job ads, she said.

There were also other parts making the picture murkier. Possible pending changes to migration policy, minimum wages, industrial relations, as well as the ongoing slow-burn of labour-replacing technology, were all likely to have an effect.

''With the Reserve Bank firmly on hold and a strong one-off element to the quarterly wage lift, we do not see next week's labour data as having strong implications for the central bank's current deliberations.

''But the labour market is likely to become a driving factor influencing the path for inflation as 2018 unfolds,'' Ms Zollner said.