Ministry of Labor adjusts basic salary again
On September 4, Taiwan time, after the minimum wage review meeting was finalized and approved by the Executive Yuan, the Ministry of Labor officially announced yesterday (19th) that it had decided to increase the monthly salary by 4.08% and the hourly wage by 3.8%.
Starting from January 2025 next year, the minimum wage will be raised from the current monthly salary of 27,470 yuan and an hourly wage of 183 yuan to a monthly salary of 28,590 yuan and an hourly wage of 190 yuan.
According to the Ministry of Labor, the adjustment of the minimum wage is to maintain the basic living standards of workers, especially for marginal workers at the bottom of the income distribution, to ensure that their basic living needs will not be severely impacted by rising prices.
However, with the minimum wage rising year after year, a problem has arisen in today's labor market - for the same number of hours worked, the salary of part-time work will exceed the income of full-time work.
For example, if a full-time worker works 8 hours a day and 22 days a month, after the hourly wage rises to 190 yuan, a part-time worker who works 8 hours a day can earn a monthly income of 33,400 yuan, which is much higher than that of a full-time worker. Basic salary of 28,590 yuan per month.
Conflict between salary structure and working hours
As part-time income is higher than full-time employment, part-time work has become increasingly popular among Taiwan's young labor market.
Especially in the context of high prices and low wages, many young people would rather choose part-time jobs with more flexible working hours and higher incomes.
Zeng Zhongwei, deputy general manager of 1111 Human Resources Bank, said that although basic salary increases year after year can guarantee the minimum income, it also increases corporate costs, thereby affecting the salary growth of full-time jobs.
In addition, the adjustment of the minimum wage is also accompanied by another problem - rising prices, especially in industries such as the service industry and retail industry that rely heavily on low-wage labor. It is easy to increase the selling price of goods after the wage increase to balance costs.
Will adjusting the minimum wage lead to price increases?
The Ministry of Labor explained that based on historical data, the increase in the minimum wage is only one of the factors causing price increases and will not directly push up the consumer price index (CPI). There are other factors such as import costs and raw material prices. Many other factors will also affect price fluctuations.
The Ministry of Labor also specifically pointed out that since the minimum wage was raised nine times in 2016, Taiwan’s CPI has not fluctuated significantly, indicating that there is no inevitable causal relationship between wage adjustments and rising prices.
However, the public obviously did not buy this explanation. Some netizens pointed out that the actual prices in real life have long been much higher than the official data, especially in terms of basic necessities such as food and transportation costs.
Some netizens angrily criticized the Ministry of Labor: "The lunch box is already 120, what is this if it's not inflation?", "Why are you raising labor and health insurance if it doesn't matter?", "I feel good about myself."
Overall, the adjustment of the minimum wage is a double-edged sword. Although it protects the purchasing power of workers at the bottom, it may also exacerbate the imbalance in the labor market, increase the income gap between part-time workers and full-time workers, and may even drive up prices.
Under such pressure, how to strike a balance between labor welfare, business costs, and price inflation will be a challenge that the Taiwan government must face.
