Minimum wage to go up in January

Employees are set to benefit from the government’s decision to raise the minimum wage by 2% from January 1.

This will bring the minimum monthly gross salary to €663, from €650, and the minimum daily wage to €29.62, from €29.04.

This rise is slightly above inflation. But the government has also pledged to maintain the 3% cut in social security contributions for 2022, at least, which will help many low-wage earners.

An unknown factor on pay is the petition, by employers’ associations, to the Council of State to abolish the “seniority bonus” given to employees with at least three years of employment. At present, this is limited to those who had three years’ work experience in 2012, with newer employees having to wait for the jobless rate to drop below 10% to earn it.