Egypt sets minimum monthly wages to 400LE
Posted: Sat Oct 30, 2010 11:49 am
The Egyptian government has raised the monthly minimum wage to 400 Egyptian pounds, $69 (£44), an increase of a third following a rise in 2008.
The Thursday's decision by the National Center for Wages came in response to two court rulings ordering the government to consider recent price hikes in setting the wage.
Rights groups and labor unions criticized the move saying the increase was trivial and only concerns the pre-tax wage. Activists have called for a minimum wage three times higher.
Thousands of government employees and factory workers have held strikes over the past months over their low salaries which have been hammered by inflation and commodity price increases.
Around 40 percent of the country's 76.5 million people live on or near the poverty line of $2 a day.
Source: The Associated Press
The Thursday's decision by the National Center for Wages came in response to two court rulings ordering the government to consider recent price hikes in setting the wage.
Rights groups and labor unions criticized the move saying the increase was trivial and only concerns the pre-tax wage. Activists have called for a minimum wage three times higher.
Thousands of government employees and factory workers have held strikes over the past months over their low salaries which have been hammered by inflation and commodity price increases.
Around 40 percent of the country's 76.5 million people live on or near the poverty line of $2 a day.
Source: The Associated Press
