There are some 25 categories of minimum wages, sectorized and non-sectorized, a “zafra” review began last week and should continue in the coming days
The Dominican labor market is a kind of archipelago of minimum rates, which with around 25 categories of regulated salaries, turns the negotiations that take place every two years into long and tedious rounds of meetings.
Globally, the private labor market in the Dominican Republic is divided into two: the non-sectorized private sector and the sectorized sector. Under normal economic conditions, that is, without a price crisis involved, the minimum wage is reviewed every two years. Labor regulations only mandate setting the minimum wage. The other levels are free.
Negotiations traditionally begin with the non-sectorized private sector, which is where the largest labor force is concentrated, as it houses the companies with the greatest weight in the real economy and in the financial sector.
For this year, the new non-sectorized minimum wage was set in record time, due to a well-known position of the President of the Republic, Luis Abinader, who in his accountability speech on February 27 announced that he would instruct the Ministry of Work to convene the National Salary Committee (CNS), with the indication that the agreed increase was a “real increase”, that is, that it was not a simple adjustment for accumulated inflation in the two years since the last increase, in 2021.
Last week the CNS, with the assistance of President Abinader, met and agreed on a 19% increase in the non-sector minimum wage, starting with 15% as of next April and the full 4% in February 2024.
what comes now
Concluded the phase of the non-sectorized sector, which has six levels of salaries, which are the four corresponding to the four categories by the size of the company, and the daily agricultural workday and the guards of the security companies, now corresponds to the sectorized sector , which implies a major review in terms of the number of activities or areas involved.
The situation occurs despite the fact that within the CNS the unification of the minimum wage based on the four categories linked to the size of the company has been proposed. “The fairest thing is to match them by the category of the size of the company,” said engineer Isachar Burgos, past president of the Dominican Confederation of Small and Medium Enterprises (Codopyme), who participated in previous negotiations on behalf of that business nucleus.
Since Burgos’s idea has not been approved, which seems to have support in other “non-sectorized” and even official business areas, the reviews should continue in the coming weeks to cover minimum wages in at least 17 areas, which includes the footwear sector. , wallets, packages, straps, belts and the like. The minimum wage in industry should also be reviewed, in the Construction and Related Sector, in which the man-hour concept is mostly applied and which includes varilleros, painters, electricians, plumbers, carpenters and heavy machine operators. In addition, the minimum wage for operators of heavy machinery must be reviewed, in non-profit institutions, in industrial free zones and those that operate in depressed areas, in NGOs that provide health services, and in the hotel sector, covering workers in hotels, bars, cafes, cafeterias, nightclubs and fast food businesses.
In the current labor scenario there is a new minimum wage component: domestic service, which by a recent resolution of the Ministry of Labor, was established at RD$10,000.
Meanwhile, by virtue of current resolution 02’2021, the minimum wage in the hotel sector ranges from RD$14,000 for the highest, RD$10,650 for the medium and RD$9,500 for the lowest.
In the free zone sector the minimum wage is RD$13,915, and in the sugar industry the minimum wage to be reviewed soon starts at the level of RD$12,000 and that of non-profit entities is RD$14,500.
Rates for plumbers, carpenters, electricians, painters, and heavy machine operators are established based on the type of building and specific characteristics of the work to be performed.
Employers with unification
The president of the Dominican Employers’ Confederation (Copardom), Laura Peña Izquierdo, said on Friday on the Despierta con CDN program, that she shares the idea of the Minister of Labor to unify the 17 minimum wages that the country has in one. “I very much agree with him, and it has been a topic of conversation in the business sector that there should be one minimum wage or maybe two,” she said.
He affirmed that “the topic of the salary conversation in our country is exhausting, because as you well know, we start with the sectorized ones and then the others come and spend months talking about the salary issue, where they ended up and where they did not end up. ”.
“I understand that yes, that we should have an average salary, of course that has to be done and we have to review it. But I believe that one of the objectives that we have to put on the table is to try to reach lower minimum wages in the Dominican Republic”, explained Peña Izquierdo.
The revised sector
By virtue of last week’s CNS decision, the minimum wage for workers in large companies will go from 21,000 pesos to 24,150 pesos in a first stage, and in February 2024 it would amount to 25,116 pesos.
Those of medium-sized companies, with a minimum salary of 19,250 pesos, would earn 22,138 pesos and in February 2024 it would be placed at 23,023 pesos; while the small ones, whose salary is currently 12,900 pesos, will reach 14,835 pesos, until reaching 15,428 pesos in February 2024.
For employees of microenterprises whose minimum wage is 11,900 pesos, the salary will be 13,685 in April and in February 2024 it will be 14,232 pesos.
The CNS agreed to increase the private security guards whose current salary is 17,250 pesos, placing it with the increase at 19,837.50 and in February 2024 it would go to 20,631 pesos.
