The Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI) on Wednesday night warned that the House-approved P200 daily wage hike could trigger job losses and fuel inflation.
The business group’s warning came after the House of Representatives approved on its third and final reading a bill granting a P200 increase in the daily minimum wage for private sector workers.
“If the P200 is approved and becomes mandatory, companies, especially MSMEs [micro, small and medium enterprises], will be forced to implement remedial measures like ‘stop hiring’, retire the workers who are retriable, terminate those with redundancy functions, slim down workers and increase prices,” the PCCI said in an initial statement.
“With increasing prices, inflation might increase as well,” it said.
The PCCI said higher prices would disproportionately affect self-employed individuals such as farmers and fishers. “Think about the non-wage workers like drivers, fisher folk, farmers, etc. who will be affected by the increase in prices and higher inflation,” it said.
The PCCI said it would release a more detailed statement on the proposed legislated wage hike on Thursday.
