The government of Northern Macedonia, employers and the Federation of Trade Unions have reached an agreement to increase the minimum wage to 18,000 denars (about 300 euros) from March, from the current 15,200 denars.
This was agreed late last night after several days of negotiations during which employers rejected the request of the largest Macedonian union to increase the minimum wage to 18,000 dinars and offered 16,300 denars, and the union threatened strikes and blockades if their request is not accepted.
According to the government in Skopje, the minimum wage that will be paid from April for at least 80,000 workers will be at least 18,000 denars.
The Prime Minister of Northern Macedonia, Dimitar Kovacevski, explained that according to the tripartite agreement on increasing the minimum wage, “the state will cover all contributions between the minimum wage of MKD 15,200 paid now to the MKD 18,000 in March”.
With the latest increase in the minimum wage, which, as the Prime Minister pointed out, “80,000 citizens will be pulled out of the poverty line.”
“By defining the minimum wage at the level of 18,000 denars, a sum that is twice as high as in 2016, we are becoming leaders in Europe in the amount of the share of the minimum in the average wage,” Kovacevski said.
According to him, at the meeting with employers and unions, an agreement was reached that the minimum wage cannot be lower than 57 percent of the average wage, according to the Central Bureau of Statistics.