The bill to raise the minimum wage to MOP34 per hour passed its first reading yesterday, with discussions mainly about the wage’s review period.
The bill proposes to increase the minimum wage depending on how salaries are calculated or paid.
For monthly wages, it is proposed to be MOP7,072; for weekly, MOP1,632; for daily, MOP272; for hourly, MOP34. For salary per part hourly, it should not be lower than MOP34 when the monthly salary is divided by the actual work hours during the month.
According to Article 9 of Law No 5/2020 – Minimum Wage for Employees, the level should be reviewed two years after the law’s promulgation and every two years thereafter.
Several lawmakers, including independent Ron Lam, civil servant unionists Che Sai Wang and José Pereira Coutinho, as well as trade unionists Leong Sun Iok and Ella Lei, expressed concern over this stipulation.
In reality, this review commenced exactly two years after the initial enactment of the law. However, this bill was only delivered to the parliament 1.5 years behind the two-year period, with all the work having been done before this bill was delivered to the parliament.
As such, the actual adjustment of the wage level is at least 3.5 years after the initial enactment of the law.
These lawmakers criticized the delay which meant the lower-income group was kept from catching up with the general inflation.
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