“There are seventeen minimum wages in our country”declared this Tuesday Luis Miguel De Camps GarciaMinister of Labor during an interview on the “El Día” program.
“There were sixteen and when we created the possibility of formalizing domestic work, number seventeen was created,” explained the official after being questioned about the “salary” issue.
The issue of the minimum wage in the country was addressed by President Luis Abinader during his accountability speech before the National Assembly.
In his address, Abinader said that the minimum wage is RD$16,000 Dominican pesos.
Given this statement, the Minister of Labor clarified that the salary mentioned by the president was “average minimum wage of the non-sectorized”.
“The minimum wage that covers the most people is the one called non-sectorized. Within the non-sectorized minimum wage there are four categories, depending on the size of the companies: large, medium, small and micro companies”, explained De Camps.
“When you take those four and look for the average, it gives that number of RD$16,200 and so many. Because it goes from RD$11,900 to RD$21,000”, the headline continued to clarify regarding Abinader’s statement.
The minimum wage for microenterprises is RD$11,900; that of small businesses RD$12,900; that of medium-sized companies is RD$19,750 and that of large companies is paid a minimum salary of RD$21,000 Dominican pesos, according to the minister.
Convocation
Luis Miguel De Camps said that the National Wage Committee (CNS) has organized several meetings, where the worker sector has made its proposal, while the employer sector still “he has not done it”.
In view of this, the minister declared that “The government wanted to advance the adjustment of salaries to be able to attend to the accumulated inflation. That’s the pure reality”.
Salary increase
When speaking about employment statistics, the president instructed the Minister of Labor to convene the CNS in the coming days with the aim of reaching a increase in private sector wageswhich is above accumulated inflation.
Regarding this, De Camps stated that “In a government of President Luis Abinader, a salary increase is not enough with an inflation adjustment”.
Also, the headline stated that they aim for the minimum wage, at least the highest, to be enough to cover the cost of the basic family basket, of the lowest.