When a national minimum wage was first mooted the DA warned that jobs would be lost in the process. Sure enough, this happened. The Treasury predicted 750,000 job losses, and though we believe it has been many more than this, any job lost is a tragedy.

The new minimum wage to be implemented from March 1 amounts to a 4.5% increase, that is about 1.5 points above inflation. The business component of Nedlac recommended an increase in line with inflation. The agricultural sector in effect faces an increase of 16% and the domestic sector an increase of almost 19%. It is clear the government doesn’t care about the retrenchments that will surely take place in both sectors...

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