AMMAN — In an interview with a local media channel
on Tuesday,
Minister of Labor Nayef Al-Steitieh said there can be no talk
about raising the minimum wage, which currently stands at JD260, even in light
of current inflation, when the Kingdom has not yet fully recovered from effects
of the COVID-19 pandemic.
اضافة اعلان
President of the Workers’ House Hamadah Abu Nijmeh
told
Jordan News that raising the minimum wage is not a decision the
government can take alone; it is decided by a committee that includes
representatives of workers, employers, and the government.
“The last time that the tripartite committee raised
the minimum wage, it also agreed to reassess the situation at the beginning of
each year, so by postponing the assessment they are breaking a rule they had
established,” Abu Nijmeh said.
“There is need to raise the minimum wage in light of
rising rate of inflation, which has had a negative effect on the country’s
poverty rate,” he added.
The public’s purchasing power has decreased; a JD260
salary “does not cover even the basic needs of a family,” Abu Nijmeh said.
Economist
Zyan Zawaneh pointed to another issue
related to minimum wage.
“With the current general budget, almost 60 to 70
percent of the budget goes to paying salaries, and yet all we see is an
increase in the public administration’s bureaucracy,” he said.
“Any raise of the minimum wage imposed on the
private sector is basically a preamble to raising public sector wages as well,”
he added. “But in the case of the private sector, that increase will be
reflected in production costs, which leads to a situation worse than the current
one,” Zawaneh said.
“What we actually need is a tax cut program, which
will minimize production costs for the private sector, leading to reducing
prices and therefore increasing money flow in our markets,” he said.
“Another issue we need to tackle is over-employment
in the public and private sectors and the qualitative rather than quantitative
hiring in both,” he added.
Abu Nijmeh disagreed, insisting that “there is no
alternative to raising the minimum wage, because it affects the poor working
people and does not directly contribute to tax revenues”.
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