About 76 percent of polled enterprises will only accept a hike of up to 3 percent in the minimum wage for 2023, well below the more than 10 percent increase urged by labor unions, a survey released by the Chinese National Federation of Industries (CNFI) showed Monday.
In the survey, 76 percent of 209 survey respondents said they would only accept a hike of up to 3 percent while about 22 percent were against any hike in the minimum wage for next year.
The survey, conducted during Aug. 1-15, was released before the Ministry of Labor’s (MOL) Minimum Wage Review Committee will convene on Sept. 1 to discuss the 2023 minimum wage increase.
Last week, the Taiwan Confederation of Trade Unions (TCTU), one of the major labor unions in the country, urged the MOL to raise the minimum wage by about 11 percent or NT$2,750 (US$90.75) to NT$28,000 for 2023.
Taiwan raised the minimum wage by 5.21 percent from 2021 to NT$25,250 starting Jan. 1, 2022 with the minimum hourly wage hike rising to NT$168 from NT$160, marking the sixth increase since President Tsai Ing-wen (???) took office in 2016.
Citing the survey, the CNFI said many small and medium-sized enterprises earned relatively low profits and would pass on the impact from a wage hike to their customers by raising product prices, which could lead to higher inflation, increase the financial burden on the public, and create more problems for society.
According to the survey, 51 percent of the respondents said their revenue fell from a year earlier in the first half of this year, while 56 percent said their profitability deteriorated from a year earlier in the six-month period.
In addition, only 5.3 percent of the respondents said they recorded an increase in both revenue and profit in the first six months and remained upbeat about the local gross domestic product (GDP) growth for 2023, while 38.3 percent said their sales and profit fell in the six-month period, and appeared pessimistic about the economic growth for next year.
The CNFI survey found 64 percent of the respondents said they were cautiously downbeat about Taiwan’s GDP growth, expecting that growth will moderate from 2022.
In mid-August, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) lowered its forecast of Taiwan’s GDP growth for 2022 slightly by 0.15 percentage points to 3.76 percent in the wake of weaker exports and a fall in private consumption. The DGBAS has also forecast GDP would grow by 3.05 percent in 2023.
Small and medium-sized firms accounted for 62 percent of the total respondents in the CNFI poll, and their prompt responses to the survey indicated their worries about the upcoming minimum wage hike, the business group said.
The CNFI said an increase in the consumer price index (CPI), which largely resulted from the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war and a spike in COVID-19 infections, had adversely affected many small and medium sized firms by pushing up their operating costs.
In July, the local CPI increased by 3.36 percent from a year earlier, marking a rise of more than 3 percent for a fifth consecutive month, driven primarily by higher prices for food and fuel prices.
The CNFI said the economy was expected to face more downside risks in the near future and urged the government to take a prudent attitude in considering the next minimum wage hike.
On Monday, several labor unions, such as the TCTU, the Taiwan Federation of Financial Unions (TFFU), the Taiwan Labor Front (TLF), the Taiwan Women’s Links (TWL), and the Taiwan Alliance for Advancement of Youth Rights and Welfare (TAAYRW), reiterated their demand that the government should raise the minimum wage to NT$28,000 for 2023 as rising inflation has hurt purchasing power.
Despite the interruptions by the COVID-19 pandemic, Taiwan is still expected to enjoy relatively high GDP growth this year so increasing the minimum monthly wage to NT$28,000 and the hourly wage to NT$186 will allow workers to share in economic benefits, Han Shih-hsien (???), secretary general of the TFFU, said at a news conference.
Yang Shu-wei (???), deputy secretary-general of the TLF, told reporters that the minimum wage law draft was still pending in the Executive Yuan after being submitted by the MOL to the Cabinet in 2018, and urged the government to speed up sending the bill to the Legislative Yuan for approval to develop a legal mechanism to approve a hike in the local base wage.
Chen added that currently wage hikes are solely dependent on an executive order after a meeting by the MOL’s Minimum Wage Review Committee.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel