He minimum wage in Venezuelawhich rose from 7 bolívars ($1.60) to 130 bolívars ($29.68) a year ago, has since declined 82% in its US currency equivalent – the country’s reference for pricing – to $5.31 , as a result of the devaluation of the local currency.
Falling wages, in a country where almost everything – even gasoline – is charged in dollars, it mainly affects public workers and pensioners -who receive the equivalent of the monthly minimum wage-, who have organized more than 1,500 protests since January, according to an NGO, demanding an increase in their income.
Although Venezuelan law stipulates that the salary must cover the basic needs of the home, a family of five needs at least $482.26 a month for their food expensesaccording to the Center for Documentation and Social Analysis of the Venezuelan Federation of Teachers (Cendas-FVM), a reference given the lack of official figures.
He economist and university professor Leonardo Vera He said that last year meant, “first of all for public sector employees and for the large mass of pensioners and retirees”, who “add more than 5 million people” in Venezuela, “a very significant deterioration in the purchasing power of their incomes and living conditions”.
Except, in the private sector, where “salary adjustments are more flexible”it is seen, “in the last two years, the improvement of wages, even in dollars.”
According to a recent study prepared by him Venezuelan Confederation of Industrialists (Conindustria)the average salary of workers in the manufacturing sector increased from 130 to 170 dollars between the first and fourth quarters of last year, which represents a growth of 30%.
On the other hand, the “reality in the official sector”, which also includes the “education, health and armed forces sector”, is that “salary has not been adjusted (…) for a year”in a country where “inflation is still around 300% and 400% annually.”
in Venezuela, wage corrections were very common until 2018year in which six increases were decreed, to which they added “no less than 47” since the arrival of the so-called Bolivarian revolutions, 1999, until then.
But from 2019, Vera explained, The government is implementing an “anti-inflationary program” various measures, among them “salary repression, i.e. avoiding wage corrections as they were happening”.
In Venezuela, a few years ago, wage adjustments took place semi-annually, even quarterly(…) but they tried to space out the salary adjustment period,” he said.
Source: Panama America
I am Jason Root, author with 24 Instant News. I specialize in the Economy section, and have been writing for this sector for the past three years. My work focuses on the latest economic developments around the world and how these developments impact businesses and people’s lives. I also write about current trends in economics, business strategies and investments.
