Hanlon: Minimum wage falls below $60/month for first time in a decade – Mozambique

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Hanlon: Minimum wage falls below $60/month for first time in a decade – Mozambique

6:16 CAT | 19 Apr 2017

The lowest non-agricultural minimum wage, for civil servants, has fallen below $60 per month for the first time since 2006. In 2006 it was $54.50/month, but by 2014 it had risen to $98.65/mo; for 2017 it has fallen back to $59.51/mo.

Minimum wages from 1 April 2017 were approved and announced by the Council of Ministers yesterday, 18 April. There are now 16 different minimum wages, and in Meticais there were sharply different increases – only two sectors had increases above the 21.6% annual inflation rate to March and most were much below inflation. One of the lowest paid sectors, civil servants, had a 21.9% rise in their minimum wage, and workers in large gas, electricity and water companies receive a 22.3% rise in their minimum. The smallest increases in minimum wages were 5.5% for hotel workers (a new category), 5.8% for salt workers, and 6% for quarry workers. The agricultural minimum wage increases 10.4%.

But the rapid devaluation of the Metical in the past two years pushes minimum wages back to what they were a decade ago. The agricultural minimum wage falls from $99/month in 2014 to $54 in 2017. The mining minimum drops from $176/mo in 2014 to $104 now; industry falls from $145 to $89.

Attached is a special supplement with the complete minimum wage table and historic minimum wages and exchange rates, also posted on http://bit.ly/MinWage2017. There is now a quite good table of government salaries (not yet updated for these changes) on http://www.meusalario.org/mocambique/

By Joseph Hanlon

Source: News reports & clippings