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December 18, 2020 – 09:02 am
Newsroom of El País
The business unions that are part of the tripartite table in which the increase in the minimum wage in Colombia for 2021 is negotiated raised their proposed increase this Friday, from 2% to 2.7%.
With this new percentage, the increase in the minimum wage would be $ 23,701, going from the current $ 877,803 to $ 901,504.
The business sector proposal also includes 5.49% in transportation assistance, which would be $ 108,496. In total, the workers who earn the minimum would receive total income of $ 1,010,000.
“Our idea is to reach an agreement with the representatives of the workers, pensioners and the Government, which puts in similar terms of increase, those that are generally agreed in the collective agreements at the company level,” said the unions in a joint statement.
The businessmen also emphasize that the figure is higher than the expected inflation for this year (1.5%) and “meets the expectation of the Banco de la República in controlling the purchasing power of the currency in 2021”.
Also read: Tax reform for 2021 is necessary, insists Ministry of Finance
For this sector, the main objectives for the coming year are to recover lost jobs, maintain existing ones, achieve sustained growth in investment to generate new jobs, achieve real gains in workers’ wages, greater labor formalization and achieve an increase in real terms to achieve greater purchasing power.
They recalled that this year the unemployment rate is at values similar to those presented 18 years ago, after the 1999 economic crisis, so they say that “the most sensible decision will be to take measures that do not threaten job creation.”
Likewise, the costs of additional obligations reach an additional 62% based on the minimum wage. This year, for example, although the salary was $ 877,803, employers had to assume a cost of $ 1,425,910 for each worker who earned the minimum.
The proposal, however, is still quite distant from the one put forward by the workers’ centrals, which is close to 14%.
The workers seek that the minimum wage reaches one million pesos plus a transportation aid of $ 120,000, with which the total income of the workers would reach $ 1,120,000, which would be $ 110,000 above the proposal of the employers.
On the part of the National Government, this Thursday the Minister of Finance, Alberto Carrasquilla, said that the increase should be around 2%, as initially proposed by the business sector.
“2% should be the point of arrival, I do not see why with this unemployment and informality it is put some increases just in the year that it is trying to rebound, it seems to me that it is just 2% and it is also reasonable,” he said Carrasquilla.
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