The Ministry of Labor is to review the minimum wage next month, an official at the agency said yesterday, following Premier Jiang Yi-huah’s (江宜樺) statement that food prices should be a major factor taken into account in the mandated salary level.
It is inappropriate to measure how inflation affects low-wage earners by looking at the consumer price index (CPI), because it comprises too many items economically weak households do not buy and overlooks the effects of rising food prices, Jiang said.
Department of Labor Standards and Equal Employment Director-General Liu Chuan-min (劉傳名) yesterday said that the ministry is to alert members of its Basic Wage Deliberation Committee of a meeting set for September.
The committee last year increased the minimum wage on the condition that it would not hold another wage review until cumulative annual CPI growth reaches 3 percent or higher, which was later approved by the Cabinet.
Labor groups have criticized the policy for what they say is a violation of the Regulations for the Deliberation of the Basic Wage (基本工資審議辦法), which stipulates: “The minimum wage review committee should on principle convene in the third quarter of every year to review wages.”
Under the condition adopted last year, the committee would not review the minimum wage this year because historical data have suggested that it would take at least two years for cumulative annual CPI growth to reach 3 percent.
Data from the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics on Tuesday last week put the inflation rate at 1.75 percent for last month, between the annual average inflation rate of between 1.8 and 2.5 percent.
However, food prices, one of the seven CPI categories, rose 4.27 percent year-on-year, with the price of eggs increasing 18.9 percent, meat 12.51 percent, fruit 10.09 percent, and fishery products 7.32 percent, the data showed.
At a meeting with labor groups yesterday, Jiang said he felt “uneasy” about the policy that adjustments in minimum wage are to be conditional on annual percentage changes in the CPI, when food prices were rising sharply.
Low-wage workers are hit hardest by rising food prices, he said.
The other six categories that make up the CPI include clothing, housing, transportation and communication, medicines and medical care, education and entertainment, as well as miscellaneous goods and services, in addition to food.
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