National Minimum Wage to be introduced in January 2018

The Chairman of the National Wage Consultative Council, Mr Beejaye Coomar Appanah, announced that the National Minimum Wage proposed by his organisation with the aim to providing a decent salary to workers of both the public and private sector will be introduced in January 2018. He expressed his optimism to present the final recommendations of the NWCC by the fourth quarter of 2017.

According to Mr Appanah, the minimum wage will be calculated as a proportion of the domestic median wage, the same method as adopted by all countries having a national minimum wage. It will cater for three categories of workers, namely: full-time workers and part-time workers; young persons aged 16 and 17; and apprentices.

He recalled that according to Statistics Mauritius, there are currently around 400,000 full-time employees among whom 20,000 are earning less than Rs 3,500 per month, 40,000 earn less than Rs 5,000 while around 100,000 employees receive less than Rs 8,000 per month. On this note, he stressed on the need to introduce the national minimum wage to protect workers at the lower rung of the social ladder so as to improve their standard of living and to enable them to live a better life. The minimum wage also aims at protecting low-paid workers against exploitation without causing job losses, he added.

Moreover the Chairman of the NWCC underpinned that the Council was set up in a bid to make recommendations in regard to the introduction of the minimum wage such as, evaluating pay structures and pay differentials which will be reviewed in 2020 and consequently, every five years. It will also take into consideration its impact on wealth and income distribution, wage ratio, employment, inflation, competitiveness and economic growth, for the benefit of one and all.