WILLEMSTAD - Against the advice of the Ministry of Economic Development (MEO) and the policy adviser of the Ministry of Finance, the Minister of Social Development, Labor and Welfare (SOAW), Hensley Koeiman, decided to increase the minimum wages as of January 1, 2020.

The Social and Economic Council (SER) is furious about this decision. The SER says that with four consecutive years of recession, the economy of Curaçao is in a downward spiral of increasing negative economic growth, sharply rising unemployment, decreasing labor productivity, increasing inflation and a growing informal economy. Indexing the minimum wage at 2.7 percent implies another cost increase for employers. The space to cope with this increase in costs has fallen sharply in recent years.

Indexing the minimum wage is therefore expected to reinforce the downward spiral. The SER states that this is also the conclusion of the Macro-Economic Impact Analysis study by MEO.

MEO therefore advises “to maintain the indexation of the minimum hourly wage per 2020, because indexing the minimum hourly wage may mean progress for a group of workers but has a negative effect on a much larger group in society.”