Raising limits of minimum wage law will plunge jobless into deeper suffering
Move by department of employment & labour will make it harder for the unemployed to find work
When the idea of a national minimum wage was first put forward, our members pleaded with parliament and the department of labour not to introduce it because it would put more low-wage earners out of jobs. We were ignored. They chose to listen to economists who told them the opposite — that if you force employers to pay higher wages they will employ more people. It doesn’t make sense. It is like saying that if you force a supermarket to charge more for eggs, they will sell more eggs.
Covid-19 has pushed unemployment over the 50% and 13-million mark. And now, under these conditions, in which employers are fighting for their lives, the department of employment & labour decides to force up the price of labour at the bottom of the labour market. Under these conditions do they seriously expect employers to employ more people? If that is what they believe they must be living in cloud cuckoo land...
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