Colombia’s Labour Minister Gloria Ines Ramirez said on Friday that the minimum wage will spike by 12% in 2024 which is equivalent to 1.3 million pesos ($340) a month.
Workers will make an extra 140,000 pesos ($36.63) a month with the new minimum wage hike.
Furthermore, as wages are going up, the country is dealing with an inflation rate that continues to rise and an economy that is losing speed. The 12-month inflation rate was 10.15 percent at the end of November.
The government decided to raise the minimum wage by 16% in 2023. However, in 2024, the hike will be less than that.
Ramirez told reporters that companies had not agreed to the 2024 rise, even though there had been talks between industry groups and the government.
Ramirez stated that ten meetings were held in an attempt to achieve an agreement, but “there were discussions and movements by the parties that were not enough to reach an agreement.”
The government sets the new minimum, and its implementation is unaffected by the lack of agreement.
There was an understanding between the government and businesses that the wage would go up in 2022 and 2023.
The minimum wage rose at the same time that the Colombian economy stayed stable.
The central bank’s technical team raised their growth prediction for 2023 to 1.2% at the end of October. However, the economy shrank by 0.3% in Q3 compared to the same time last year, which made bank president Leonardo Villar warn that the prediction was not likely to come true.
