LABOR coalition Nagkaisa said over the weekend that the government must push for measures to encourage investment in tandem with a legislated wage hike.
“A thriving business sector can lead to more dynamic labor markets where merit and productivity are rightly rewarded,” Nagkaisa chairperson Jose “Sonny” G. Matula said in a Viber message. “We believe that these efforts should complement each other to achieve sustainable economic growth that benefits all stakeholders, particularly the working class.”
Last week, the Senate approved on final reading a bill seeking an across-the-board P100 minimum wage increase for private-sector workers, the first legislated wage hike since the Wage Rationalization Act of 1989.
The Employers Confederation of the Philippines (ECoP) called the legislated wage hike “catastrophic [and] inflationary,” adding that microenterprises would find it difficult to pay their workers and be forced to lay off staff. — John Victor D. Ordoñez
