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The minimum wage will increase, the sum to be established later, on the basis of an impact study and consultations with social partners and non-governmental organizations, stated, on Friday, in Brasov, Prime Minister Ludovic Orban.
"Certainly, the minimum wage will increase, but I cannot tell you the sum of the increase. At this time a working team was established: The Finance Ministry - the SGG [Government's General Secretariat] - Ministry of Labor and Social Protection and the Prognosis Commission. We will come on the basis of the impact study that we are conducting with a proposal, which, obviously, will be subjected to debate in the tripartite council - unions, employers' associations, non-governmental associations. We will listen to arguments, because there are differences in approach," Orban explained.
The head of the Government recalled that, since 2015, the European Commission requested Romania an objective mechanism of raising the minimum wage that is based on economic realities, on objective indicators, among them the index of productivity increase, economic growth, the increase of the gross average wage, the rate of inflation, "so that the decision of increasing the minimum wage is not determined arbitrarily by the political subjectivism that a government can have, but simply be a decision that has beneficial social and economic effects."
"If you raise the minimum wage too little, you can't even compensate for the effects of inflation. If however you raise the minimum wage too much, you risk affecting entire branches and many of the employees that work on minimum wage risk losing their jobs. (...) We want that every decision, not only the decision regarding the minimum wage, be taken on the basis of very solid arguments and especially a very solid prediction regarding the impact of such a decision on the economy," Orban concluded.
