In Colombia, there is expectation for the figure that will raise the amount of the minimum wage in the country next year. By the way, this Thursday, December 19, an economic means leaked the figure that the Government of President Gustavo Petro would leave.
In the midst of the expectation surrounding this issue, the former Minister of Finance and Commerce, José Manuel Restrepo, spoke in El Debate de SEMANA and stated that it would be a “mistake.” set such a high figure for the minimum wage, since inflation would end 2024 at 5%. In fact, the Bank of the Republic has assured in its projections that this indicator would be precisely 5.3% at the end of the year.
“(It would be) a historic, unnecessary error. It is very high (The figure),” said Restrepo, who explained in El Debate that “Salary increases are important for the dynamics of a country, because they define a substantive cost in a company or in the State. And this increase in wages should be, hopefully, connected to the increase in inflation and simultaneously connected to the increase in productivity.”
In this way, Restrepo pointed out that a sensible increase in the minimum wage in 2025, should be around 5.2% and 6%.
“Anything above that, it seems to me that it is a gigantic cost for the productive sector, where the majority are micro entrepreneurs, shopkeepers, small industrialists, who when they see an excessive increase in the cost of employment, what happens is that they become informal. That is, they move some employees from formality to informality. And in the case of the State, it implies a substantially higher cost that affects the country’s public coffers or finances,” the former minister added.
