 |
|
|
 Business News | December 2005 
Minimum Wage to Raise by Four Percent
 Wire services
| | "Keep working, it's the only way out." |
Mexico will raise the minimum wage by 4 percent in 2006, higher than record-low annual inflation of 2.91 percent in November.
The minimum wages in Mexico´s three zones will be raised on Jan. 1, the National Minimum Wage Commission said in a faxed statement. In 2005, the average increase of the minimum wage was 4.5 percent.
Many companies use the minimum wage percentage increase as a benchmark to negotiate salary contracts even if workers earn several times the official minimum wage.
The minimum wage in zone A, which includes Mexico City, Acapulco and several border cities such as Ciudad Juárez and Matamoros, will increase to 48.67 pesos (US$4.56) a day from 46.8 pesos a day. Zone B, which includes Monterrey and Guadalajara, will increase to 47.16 pesos a day from 45.45 pesos, and zone C, which includes most of the Mexican states and cities, will rise to 45.81 pesos (US$4.30) daily from 44.05 pesos.
Mexico´s miners and steelworkers union said in a e-mailed statement that it rejected the 4 percent increase because the union considers it "unworthy for the working class of the country and an embarrassment for the nation´s unions." The union was the only organization that refused to sign the commission´s minimum-wage document, the statement said.
Mexico´s inflation rate has declined to a record low from 9 percent when President Vicente Fox took office in December 2000 and as high as 52 percent in 1995 following a peso devaluation in December 1994. Mexico´s central bank has set a target of 3 percent annual inflation. |
| |
|
Vallarta Weddings
Tell a Friend
Site Map
Print this Page
Email Us