Local News

P200 across-the-board wage hike needs further study says BBM

English language instructor Brian Schroeder conducts a communication skills training course for call center jobs to retrenched Filipino workers at Manila's financial district in Makati on February 18, 2009. The retrenched workers mostly from electronics and semiconductor firms in the country and Taiwan, applied through a government retraining program that provides for free skills training for workers displaced due to the financial meltdown. The number of people out of work in Asia could surge by 23.3 million this year as the global financial crisis continues to batter the region's economies, according to the International Labor Organization study released February 18. AFP PHOTO/ROMEO GACAD (Photo by ROMEO GACAD / AFP)

PRESIDENT Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr said that an ample study should first be done in relation to the proposed P200 across-the-board daily wage hike for workers.

Marcos said that they have to do a careful balancing act as it would affect small businesses and possibly drive prices higher.

Earlier, the House Committee on Labor and Employment had approved a measure that mandates “all employers in the private sector… regardless of capitalization and number of employees, to pay their workers an across-the-board wage increase of P200 a day.”

According to House Speaker Martin Romualdez — the President’s cousin — they may push for such an increase.

Last year, House leaders thumbed down such proposals for a legislated wage hike saying these would speed up inflation.

They also noted that business owners would simply pass on the cost of the higher wages to consumers by raising their prices.

This fact had Marcos Jr. acknowledging that while there is a need to help ordinary workers deal with inflation, but they also have to look at business owners who had already raised concerns about the proposed increase.

“Pag tinaas ‘yung minimum wage, mababawasan ang kanilang empleyado kasi ganoon pa rin ‘yung pera nila. Hindi naman madadagdagan ‘yung pera na pambayad nila ng suweldo,” the President said.

He said that the proposed measure would affect micro, small and medium enterprises — the majority of businesses registered in the Philippines.