President Gustavo Petro announced that the minimum wage in 2025 will have an adjustment of 9.54%. In this way, starting January 1, This monthly remuneration will increase by $123,500 and will be located at $1,423,500 without transportation assistance.
The president highlighted that with the last three increases, “we have grown in real minimum wage in Colombia between 30% and 35%.” In this context, he referred to the objections that have been made from the business front regarding thethe need to set a figure according to the economic reality of the country.
“The large business community of Colombia, gathered in the National Association of Industrialists (Andi) and the SAC, says that if I increase the real minimum wage, the national economy will collapse. That is not true. The real minimum wage has been increasing for a very long time. above inflation in the year 2022, in the year 2023 and now in 2024. What the national economy does is grow. We received it almost in recession and it is going for 2% and. We expect 3% for next year.”Petro highlighted.
The head of state also pointed out that the salary increase will allow the economy to grow by impacting the dignity of Colombian workers.
“This mentality of believing that workers have to be slaves, that is why they have been preventing the Labor Reform from being approved, does not serve Colombia, it has condemned us to misery, to being the most socially unequal society in the world. It has condemned us to violence. It has condemned us to a youth that at least half has no place in this country, perhaps they have to devote themselves to selling their bodies, perhaps to leave the country, or perhaps to shoot. he added.
Along the same lines, the president also referred to the president of Andi, Bruce Mac Master, pointing out that his thesis regarding the salary increase is “a sovereign and profound lie” and that, on the contrary, “Colombia is going to grow more.”
(Read more: How much transportation aid was set for 2025 with an increase in the minimum wage)
“If the minimum wage grows, it makes the economy grow, not the other way around, it is not with slave workers, how the economy of a country grows, it is with workers who earn, who have dignity in their lives. That mentality of believing that workers have to be… pic.twitter.com/HuFj4OXEV8
— Colombian Presidency 🇨🇴 (@infopresidencia) December 24, 2024
(See: Increase in the minimum for 2025 puts the viability of companies at risk, according to unions)
Mac Master’s response
After the adjustment announcement was made known, The union leader spoke out through his X account.
Mac Master noted that “Populist decisions end up being a celebration for a few days and hunger for the future.”
“It is almost always about making announcements that many people can celebrate, but ends up generating immense costs for the entire society in the future, especially for the most vulnerable. That is not new, this has already been put into practice by many leaders in many places. of the planet, and the results are always more poverty, less development, more unemployment, more fiscal cost for the State and finally despair of the rulers”he added.
It should be remembered that the increase in the minimum was defined by decree after the salary consultation table, of which the workers’ confederations and representatives of the employers are part, will not be able to reach an agreement regarding the percentage increase.
Populist decisions end up being a celebration for a few days and hunger for the future.
It is almost always about making announcements that many people can celebrate but ends up generating immense costs for the entire society in the future, especially for the most vulnerable.…
—Bruce MacMaster (@BruceMacMaster) December 24, 2024
(More news: Credicorp’s forecasts for the Colombian economy: how does 2025 ‘look’?)
PORTFOLIO
