The Employers’ Confederation of the Mexican Republic (Coparmex) proposes an increase in the minimum wage of 12 percent by 2025, something that is still not enough to cover the food and non-food basket, said its leader José Medina Mora Icaza.
“For now, we have made the proposal that by 2025 the increase in the minimum wage will be 12 percent, and that will lead us, in that gradualness, to the fact that in 2026 we can reach the line of Family Well-being,” commented the businessman at the Labor Forum organized by Coparmex.
The employer leader highlighted the progress that has been made in increasing the minimum wage, registering 130 percent in the last six-year term, by agreement.
“With the Secretary of Labor, with the workers’ unions in this social dialogue, we have achieved, since 2016, important progress for the benefit of the workers,” he recalled.
“2016 was an important date because it was possible to separate the minimum wage from the prices of around 2 thousand products and services. You will remember that before, when the minimum wage increased, these products and services also increased, which generated inflation and that caused the purchasing power of the workers’ salaries to be lost, which is why the salary was not increased,” he explained.
The businessman added that once it was separated and the UMA appeared, they were able to make gradual proposals since 2016.
“Why have minimum wage increases had to be gradual? They are two important factors that we review every proposal, every year we make,” he mentioned.
Medina Mora explained that the gradual increase in the minimum wage is so that it does not generate inflation or informality, especially because they have to look at micro and small businesses, where if the increase is too high, they will go into informality.
“And in this year, from 2016 to this year, we have been able to propose and it has been accepted, it has been agreed upon in the National Minimum Wage Commission, this tripartite Commission, an increase of 130 percent of the minimum wage,” he stated.
The president of Coparmex stated that they have already managed to pass the objective of reaching the line of individual well-being, that is, that a person reaches that minimum wage for their food and non-food basket.
“Our next objective is that in a family of four, where two work, those two minimum wages allow them to cover the food and non-food basket.”
Medina Mora Icaza recognized that employees with better salaries respond with an increase in productivity, without specifying it.
All labor improvement initiatives imply a “cost for companies”, which is why they are in the process of implementing the pension reform that gradually increases one percent a year to reach 8 percent, in addition to increases to minimum wage, among others.
He explained that the labor authorities are in dialogue to jointly analyze all labor initiatives and they see “the gradual 180-day period for compliance as very positive.” All obligated companies will have to do it” for the Silla Law, concluded the employer leader.
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