The government has adopted a law that will raise the gross minimum wage by 11% to 2,550 lei at the beginning of next year.
This means that an employee will receive a net salary of 1,524 lei, a net increase of 138 lei compared to 2021.
“The gross minimum wage will increase by 11% from the beginning of next year. The government has adopted the law that will raise the minimum gross wage to 2,550 lei,” the Labour Minister announced.
“This increase will be 10% net. The increase represents an increase of 250 lei from the current level, 130 lei net. There are 1.2 million people in the country paid the minimum wage. This increase will impact 1,970 thousand employees. Amendment of the Labor Code: define undeclared work. Grey work – a worrying phenomenon in Romania. These contracts that contain other parties, which harm all parties involved”, Turcan added.
Currently, the minimum wage has been set, in January 2021, at 2,300 lei gross, so employees receive a net minimum wage of 1,386 lei.
Florin Jianu, president of the council for SMEs, said that a 10.9% increase in the gross minimum wage only covers inflation and nothing has been done to protect micro-enterprises from price increases.
“The decision to increase the minimum wage is being taken now, but for the rethinking of the taxation of labor, for the programs that support SMEs, for all the other measures that support the economy, all are with “to be followed”,” he said.
Jianu also said that the minimum wage must be part of a package of measures. “What we are saying with this package: come up with measures to regain the competitiveness of certain areas or change them to other areas. Entrepreneurs tell us that 40% of the Regional Operational Programme is not spent so far. We have the NRDP that nobody knows what it looks like,” said the president of the CNIPMMR.
Radu Burnete, executive director of the Concordia Employers’ Confederation, believes that the decision to increase the minimum wage is necessary, but with a coherent and economically logical calculation formula. “Concordia proposed an 8% wage increase this year and a schedule of annual increases, but the government decided to increase it by 10.9%, based on a formula that we do not agree with, because it takes into account inflation and productivity growth several times. The measure is necessary, but it must be based on a correct formula that can be replicated in future years to create sustainable and predictable growth,” says Burnete.