Presidential adviser on entrepreneurship Joey Concepcion yesterday said it is too early for calls to any wage increase saying the situation is very fluid.
At the Laging Handa public briefing yesterday, Concepcion made this comment on the call by Partidong Mangagagawa for a legislated P100- increase in minimum wage and the petition filed by the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines for a P470 across-the-board salary hike in the National Capital Region.
In a separate interview, Sergio Ortiz-Luis, president of the Employers Confederation of the Philippines (ECOP) called on government to shoulder the wage hike being sought for in the form of non-wage benefits like subsidies since majority of companies will not be able to afford paying their employees more.
Ortiz-Luis warned a wage increase will only result in layoffs by micro enterprises (MEs) , and for Messages that have temporarily closed to not reopen at all.
Concepcion said any wage hike proposal should wait until a decision is reached by government on either removing or subsidizing the excise tax and the value-added tax on oil as this could help lower gas prices. This is in addition to the subsidies granted to the transport and agriculture sectors.
Concepcion added the situation is very fluid, referring to the Ukraine-Russia conflict that has led to surging fuel prices and would likely to push inflation that in turn erodes the purchasing power of Filipinos.
“What if the Ukraine-Russia conflict ends? We cannot ask workers to return the wage adjustments. The situation may just be temporary,” he said.
Concepcion said only large businesses can afford to give wage increases but small and medium enterprises which were badly hit by the pandemic will have a hard time especially as major parts of the country have only reopened for less than a month.
He cited tourism which needs time to recover after two years of not in operation.
Concepcion said business groups will have to meet and compute the adjustments if warranted.
He expressed confidence the Department of Labor and Employment will come up with a proposal that will balance the situation.
“Government and private sector will have to have more discussions. Give it (conflict) time to see the impact on business,” Concepcion added.
Ortiz-Luis for his part said since only 16 percent of the 44-million strong workforce of the country will benefit as they are in the formal sector of the economy, any wage increase will leave out the greater majority of workers who belong to the informal sector or are working for MEs, half of which have shut down operations.
Ninety percent of the country’s enterprises are micro and small but they account for 65 percent of total employment. .
At the House of Representatives, Deputy Speaker Bernadette Herrera of Bagong Henerasyon party-list lauded Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello’s directive to all regional tripartite wage boards (RTWPBs) to expedite the review of minimum wages to help workers and their families weather the current oil crisis.
Herrera agreed the current daily minimum wage in NCR), for instance, of P537 may no longer cope with the price of basic commodities, such as food, electricity and water bills.
“It is imperative to provide workers and their families with the means to cope up with increasing costs of living, without hampering the growth and development of business and industry,” she said.
Rep. Enrico “Eric” Pineda, House committee on labor and employment chair, earlier said his panel will discuss the possibility of wage increases because of the effects of fuel price hikes.
House Bill (HB) Nos. 246, 276, 541, 668, 2878, 6668, 6752 which all propose to amend the Labor Code of the Philippines to institutionalize a national minimum wage for private sector workers will be part of the meeting’s agenda.
The house bills were initially discussed by the panel last February 2020, before the onset of the pandemic and the implementation of different community quarantine levels.
“We will open deliberations once again also so that we can have some discussions on the feasibility of raising minimum wage through the National Wages and Productivity Commission,” Pineda said. – With Wendell Vigilia
