Minimum wage: Resumption of negotiations still awaits scheduling

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Minimum wage: Resumption of negotiations still awaits scheduling

3:21 CAT | 13 Nov 2020

File photo: Lusa

There is still no date for the resumption of the 2020 minimum wage negotiations suspended in April on the basis of the Covid-19 pandemic.

It has been more than seven months since the interruption, and, about a month before the end of 2020, still no improvement in the economy or prospect of a recovery.

The deputy minister of Labour and Social Security, Rolinho Farnela, says that the negotiating parties decided to suspend talks in April this year, until the economy should show some improvement.

“The recovery depends on economic growth, and we cannot discuss wages without first seeing the economy. We still have companies reeling from the impact of Covid-19, and we are still trying to send back mine workers to South Africa – which process is in the final phase,” Deputy Minister Farnela explained.

Farnela said that mapping was underway nationally to determine the sectors most affected by the pandemic and the degree of economic recovery; only after that would negotiations resume.

Absent discussions, the minimum wage of around 4,000 meticais has so far been maintained, but there are doubts as to whether there will be any change before the end of the year.

“I cannot categorically say that [there will be no salary increase this year], but I want to reaffirm that this process depends on a tripartite commission made up of employers, workers and the government. So we have the proponents there who are going to play their part,” the deputy minister underlined.

Deputy Minister Farnela was speaking on the sidelines of the National Migration Labour Meeting, where he said that, even with the pandemic, contracts for foreigners in the country and Mozambicans abroad continued to be processed.

In the first half of this year alone, more than 15,600 foreign workers sought employment in Mozambique, and more than 16,000 foreign worker hirings were processed by the sector in 2019.

“The hiring of foreign labour compensates for the lack of nationals with the qualifications required for the exercise of certain professions, or insufficient numbers,” he said.

Conversely, in the first half of this year, nearly 8,000 Mozambican workers went to work in mines and on farms in neighbouring South Africa. Deputy Minister Farnela said that work contracts were currently being renewed for more than 16,000 in these sectors.

Employees expelled

In the last five years, nine employees in the migratory labour sector had been disciplined for corruption and other illegal acts, the deputy minister revealed.

By Edson Arante

Source: O País