TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — It will take until Oct. 8 to find out whether the basic minimum wage will rise or not in 2022, reports said Wednesday (Sept. 22).
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Minimum Wage Review Committee delayed its annual meeting from August, with Oct. 8 as the new date announced by the Ministry of Labor (MOL) on Wednesday, CNA reported.
Representatives of employers, workers, academics, and the government will sit together and discuss whether to raise the monthly minimum salary of NT$24,000 (US$865) and the hourly wage of NT$160 from next Jan. 1. Business organizations have opposed an across-the-board hike, while government ministers said it would be difficult to avoid a raise, given the hardships of the past year due to the effect of the COVID outbreaks.
While last year’s rise was the fifth one since President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) took office in 2016, the scale of the hike was only NT$200, leading the MOL to comment that workers sacrificed their interests for the common good in 2020, and should therefore receive a more substantial raise this time around.