One of nation’s major trade unions on Thursday called for the minimum wage to be increased by more than 10 percent to NT$28,000 per month, saying that working people need more money to cope with the rising cost of living.
Taiwan Confederation of Trade Unions (TCTU) secretary-general Tai Kuo-jung (戴國榮) made the suggestion ahead of the annual meeting of the Ministry of Labor’s Minimum Wage Review Committee on Thursday next week.
The committee, which comprises labor, business, government and academic representatives, agreed last year to a 5.21 percent increase in the minimum wage from NT$24,000 to NT$25,250.
Photo: Chan Shih-hung, Taipei Times
The committee typically makes its recommendations based on indicators such as GDP growth and the consumer price index (CPI), which measures changes in the prices of basic goods and services across the economy, Tai said.
The government has raised its CPI forecast for this year from 2.67 percent to 2.92 percent, while cutting its GDP growth projection from 3.91 percent to 3.76 percent, he said.
Based on the factors that have prevailed in previous years, Tai said that the committee is likely to recommend an increase of about 4.8 percent, which would raise the minimum wage to about NT$26,460.
However, he said that the government should double that increase, which would take the minimum wage to NT$28,000, to compensate for inflation and to move closer to President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) goal of increasing it to NT$30,000 by the end of her second term.
TCTU president Chiang Chien-hsin (江健興) also argued for implementing a bigger increase, saying that failure to do so would risk creating a “vicious cycle,” in which consumers’ reduced buying power would drag down economic growth.
Lee Chien-hung (李健鴻), a professor in the department of labor and human resources at Chinese Culture University, said the committee would need to balance the considerations of labor and capital, both of which are in a worse situation than last year.
While workers are being squeezed on one side by high prices, the economic outlook, particularly for the export of high-tech and manufactured goods, has also darkened, Lee said.
A minimum wage increase “is necessary ... but it should not exceed 5 percent,” he said.
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