(QCOSTARICA) The government this week announced the private sector minimum wage hike for the second half of the year, in effect starting July 1.
By government decree, the increase is 0.94% across the board for all job classifications, save for domestic workers whose salary hike is 1.04%.
In real terms, the increase is ¢904 colones for every ¢100,000 colones.
For example, a college graduate with a minimum monthly salary of ¢609,355 colones, will take home an extra ¢8,597 colones starting in July. For a domestic worker (maid) the minimum monthly salary, according to the Ministry of Labour (Ministerio de Trabajo) minimum salary table, increases to ¢170,901 from ¢169,142 or an extra ¢1.759 colones.
For the first half of the year (January to June), the increase was 2.1% and 2.5% for domestic workers.
The private sector union is none to happy.
They had requested an increase of between 1.46% to 5%.
Actually, with the way the Costa Rica Economy is performing at this time (tanking!), the Country is really not in a position to support any wage hike for either the Private, or Public Sector. The editorial in La Nacion this morning, spells this out rather graphically, with a warning to the Public Sector about not expecting a significant wage hike as well, if any. The Comptroller General stated last week, that Government spending in Costa Rica equals $1.71 U.S, for $1.00 U.S. received in tax revenues. This obviously cannot continue.