AMMAN — Director of Labor Relations at
the Ministry of Labor Adnan Al-Dahamsheh said that the issue of raising the
minimum wage is linked to inflation rates and that if any increase is approved
for this year, it will be too small to make a difference.
اضافة اعلان
Dahamsheh told
Jordan News that raising the minimum wage was postponed due to the current circumstances,
brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, adding that increases might be expected
in 2023, as “we monitor the economic conditions and approve the increase accordingly”.
He said that it is illogical to
raise the wages by JD2–3, as employees will not notice the increase and it
would make no difference, “but, at the same time, it could harm employers who may
decide to dismiss some employees as the prevailing hard economic conditions do not
allow for any more costs”.
Hamada Abu Nijmeh, head of the
Workers’ House, told
Jordan News that it will be in nobody’s interest to
postpone raising the minimum wage, “neither at the social level, in reducing
poverty and unemployment and their impacts, nor at the economic level, in
limiting the decline in growth and the weak competitiveness of economic
projects and the demand for investment”.
Abu Nijmeh added that the government
is responsible for compensating citizens, protecting them from poverty, addressing
unemployment and economic participation rates, and the citizens' purchasing
power, all matters that “negatively affect the economic sectors and exacerbate
the problem of low economic growth”.
He added that the concerned
authorities should study all the effects of the pandemic and assess the amount
required to raise the minimum wage and its impacts on economic indicators such
as prices, employment opportunities, unemployment, poverty, competitiveness,
and growth rates.
“It must be based on a number of
main economic indicators in this field, most notably, the increase in
inflation, the wage index, the cost of living index, poverty levels, and the
disparity in the wage structure between the public and private sectors,” Abu
Nijmeh said.
Ahmad Awad, head of the Jordan Labor
Watch, told
Jordan News that two main criteria must be taken into
account in order to raise the minimum wage: families’ poverty levels and
dependency rate.
Awad added that based on these two
criteria, the minimum wage should be between JD400 and JD480, “in order for an
individual to meet his and his family members’ basic needs”.
He said that the minimum wage is one
of the tools governments use to regulate wage policies to ensure that wage
levels make possible a decent life for workers and their families, and fight
poverty, in addition to being a tool for government intervention to stimulate
domestic demand for consumption as one of the engines of economic growth.
He also said that the agreement the
parties at the Tripartite Committee for Labor Affairs reached not to raise the
minimum wage this year “will deepen poverty levels, on the one hand, and weaken
the chances of reviving the economy, on the other”.
Economist Hussam Ayesh told
Jordan
News that raising the minimum wage would help increase the purchasing power
of citizens and thus move the economic wheel, which has become a necessity,
especially in light of the difficult economic conditions.
Ayesh added that such raise provides
protection to citizens and “constitutes a kind of justice for them”, and stressed
the need to have “another evaluation of the raise that depends on the
performance and production ratio of employees, as this will give them greater
motivation to produce".
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