While analyzing the country’s financial state, it is quite interesting to know how much the labourers are paid off. Asian countries are quite diverse culturally and economically. Asia holds both advanced and developing economies ranging from prosperous Singapore and impoverished Nepal.
Asia’s economic growth is something that has not happened before in history. It had only 16.8% of the world’s economy in 1960, whereas the economy reached 45.4% in 2015. Despite the recent lockdown due to pandemics, the continent remained the fastest-growing region. Though the continent has an unparalleled growth in recent decades, labour wages are still a vulnerable condition. Due to such a situation, labour advocates execute a strike frequently.
The minimum wages in Asia aren’t quite satisfactory but are under improvement, and some countries in the continent include a very complicated minimum wage system. Asian countries like Indonesia, India, and China are some regions that don’t feature one minimum wage, but minimum wage varies even from state to state in a single country. Such incidents make it difficult for workers to figure out how much they are being paid or how much they should be paid off.
The difficulties increase more for workers as the minimum wage policy only applies to formal jobs. Asia preserves a high rate of informal jobs; take India, for example, which records only five or six per cent formally employed workers working in a formal company. Pakistan, Thailand, and Indonesia are also estimated to possess 74%, 63%, and 60% informal jobs, respectively.
Real wages in Asia have kept increasing in productivity closer than in some other regions, particularly Europe. Some Asian countries like China and Vietnam are far better than others. Also, Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines feature quite strong gains in reducing inequality. However, South Asian countries are slightly below productivity with minimum wage increases. Countries such as India and Srilanka face a decline in wage growth. Van Klaveren points out that India is still lagging in setting clear standards for minimum wage in Asia.
Besides, Asia also has countries that don’t have a minimum wage; take Singapore as an example. On the contrary to this, South Korea and Japan are falling with minimum wage. Japan was much more robust in wage shares 20-30 years back but now lagging. A similar situation is also in Hongkong due to recent inflation in the country.
The lowest pay permitted by law rates across ASEAN nations is rising continuously to coordinate with the locale’s expanded typical cost for essential items and lift homegrown interest. In any case, because of the pandemic, numerous ASEAN individuals didn’t raise their base wages or didn’t raise them essentially.
Conclusion
The higher wages, the better and safer the country’s economy. However, it’s not true. The higher wages can take the employment at stake in the country. Besides unproductivity, an increase in national expenditure can also be the cause of the higher pay. So, minimum wages are also not too bad for the economic growth of the country. It helps the country reduce poverty and inequality and keep the balance in the society. As Asia lacks strong social protection and trade union, governments and labour activists of the continent own minimum wage to protect vulnerable workers. However, the continent will face other problems even after the minimum wages in Asia are higher.
