The purchasing power lost due to inflation must be recovered without the readjustment damaging the effort to reverse inflationary pressures
In the discussion on the salary readjustment, the parties participating in the tripartite dialogue in the National Wage Committee they must move towards a point of equilibrium that allows them to walk the fine line of achieving the objective of making workers recover the purchasing power devoured by inflation and that at the same time ensures that readjustment does not become a disruptive element of the effort to reverse the inflationary process unleashed in the economy, mainly due to external factors.
It is true that the country appears as one of the nations with the lowest wages in Latin Americabut without denying that there is some truth in this when comparing the salaries of the countries in the region, the comparisons are also often misleading, because they do not take into account the distortion that exists with the large number of minimum wages established in the country.
There are 17 minimum wages in total, ranging from 9,500 pesos to 21,000 pesos per month.
He minimum salary The weighted average is 17,873 Dominican pesos per month, equivalent to 319 dollars, much higher than the first level of minimum wages, which is 170 dollars, and lower than the last level, which is 375 dollars.
If, when comparing with other countries, we take the first level of minimum wage as a point of reference, the Dominican Republic It would be placed in one of the first places with the lowest wages and if the highest level of minimum wage is used for comparison, we would be close to a point where we would not be so far behind as shown in some studies that do not take into account the distortion created by the existence of such a high variety of minimum wages in the country. But making the comparison with the weighted average minimum wage, which is the most rational, the country would be close to the midpoint in the region.
However, it should be taken into account that while it is true that it is a pending task to achieve better wages in the country, the priority at this time must be to ensure that workers can recover the purchasing power lost due to inflation, without that this sacrifices the priority objective at this time, which is to break inflationary pressures, maintaining economic growth.
The country would gain a lot if the three parties participating in the dialogue understand that nothing is more important at this juncture than reversing the inflationary process and ensuring the capacity of the Dominican economy to generate new jobs, which would lead to a higher level of well-being. .
