At a time when the labor, government and business sectors are meeting to agree on the percentage of the minimum wage increase, Ligia Bonetti, president of the Dominican Republic Association of Industries is calling for a social pact for jobs to be signed. She says that attention needs to be focused on more than the minimum wage, and that without better jobs economic and social development will not be possible. Bonetti states that if the conditions are not created for companies to compete and export, they will not be able to guarantee the jobs that are needed. She points to the facts that unemployment is at 15.1% and that 34% of young people of working age in the DR neither works nor studies. She said that employers have to add on 65% in other charges and benefits to the actual wage paid. Making matters worse, 75.4% of jobs created through 2012 are in the informal sector of the economy.
Bonetti made her comments after attending a talk by Labor Minister Maritza Hernandez yesterday, Thursday 18 April. Hernandez spoke of eight areas the government will act on to increase formal jobs.
The business sector wants to reduce the 65% additional charges that Bonetti says are the highest in the Central America and Caribbean region, but Minister Hernandez rejected the idea of making any changes to the labor code.
The AIRD says that in the first two months of the year local industry reported that sales were down by 8.5%, or RD$24 billion lower. Bonetti warned that if the decline in sales continues, one of the consequences would be a decline in employment. She called for a change in the country’s economic model.
www.diariolibre.com/economia/2013/04/19/i379853_ministerio-trabajo-rechaza-modificar-codigo-laboral.html