UPDATED 5.35pm Minimum wage earners will get an extra 50 cents an hour in their pay packets from April.

LISTEN ABOVE: Mike Treen of Unite Union spoke to Larry Williams

The wage will rise to $15.75 per hour on April 1 while starting-out and training hourly minimum wages will rise from $12.20 to $12.60 per hour.

It will go to 119,500 workers.

Workplace Relations Minister Michael Woodhouse said the government was committed to giving low paid workers more money in their pockets without hindering job growth or pressuring businesses.

The 50 cents an hour rise in the minimum wage will put another $65 million a year into workers' pockets.

The 3.3 per cent increase will over time strike the right balance between increasing the incomes of those in secure employment and helping the unemployed to find jobs, Prime Minister Bill English said.

The increase could put up to 1500 jobs into question, but Mr English said in the context of an economy creating hundreds of thousands of jobs over two or three years that's not a large number.

"But you do have to keep it in mind," he said.

"You can see the logic that the wages keep going up you get some sort of substitution of kiosks or whatever for people, and that's why we talk about the balance here, trying to get the balance."

Mr Woodhouse said the government is committed to striking the right balance between protecting the lowest paid workers and ensuring jobs are not lost.

But Labour MP Iain Lees-Galloway said, while it's "lovely" the minimum wage had risen by 3.3 per cent, rents have gone up 5.8 per cent and house prices 12.5 per cent.

He's tweeted that 200,000 workers stuck on the minimum wage is far too many.

Min Wage up 3.3%. Lovely. But rents have gone up 5.8% and house prices 12.5%. 200,000 workers stuck on the min wage is far too many. #nzpol

— Iain Lees-Galloway (@IainLG) January 24, 2017

Additional reporting NZ Newswire