South Korea Govt. begins deliberation on 2022 minimum wage

The government of South Korea on Wednesday began the formal procedure to set the nation’s legal minimum wage for next year, the labour ministry said.

Already, the labour circles have stepped up calls for a realistic wage increase.

Minister of Employment and Labour Lee Jae-kap, sent a written request to the Minimum Wage Commission (MWC) to start its deliberation on next year’s minimum wage.

Under the current law, the labour minister asked the MWC to launch its deliberation on the new minimum wage by the end of March every year.

The 27-member MWC, a trilateral panel composed of nine representatives each from labour, management and the general public, to complete its review by mid-July for a formal announcement by Aug. 5, every year.

This year’s minimum hourly wage is set at 8,720 won (US$7.70), or 1.82 million won per month, which marked the smallest-ever annual increase of 1.5 per cent due mainly to the economic difficulties stemming from the Coronavirus pandemic.

It fell sharply from increases of 16.4 per cent in 2018, 10.9 per cent in 2019 and 2.9 per cent in 2020.

Experts said it may be difficult to expect a steep rise in the minimum wage for 2022, the last year of President Moon Jae-in’s five-year tenure, as COVID-19 may have significantly restrained small merchants’ ability to pay wages.

Corporate managers were also calling for stabilising the minimum wage for the time being to better protect small merchants.

But the labour circles are asking for raising the minimum wage to realistic levels next year, saying that the minimum wage has been virtually frozen or cut since last year due to sharp falls in its increase rates.

Labour groups insisted that a realistic increase was needed considering the growing pandemic-related pain suffered by low-income workers.