CHESTER SAM­BRA­NO

Lead Ed­i­tor – News­gath­er­ing

The Na­tion­al Min­i­mum Wage will in­crease from $17.50 to $20.50 per hour from to­mor­row, Jan­u­ary 1, 2024.

In a state­ment, the Min­istry of Labour said this 17% in­crease was de­ter­mined “based on care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion and as­sess­ment by the Min­i­mum Wages Board (MWB)”.

The Min­istry said this lat­est three-dol­lar hourly in­crease will ben­e­fit ap­prox­i­mate­ly 190,000 work­ers who are em­ployed across Trinidad and To­ba­go with­in su­per­mar­kets, hard­ware stores, bars, ho­tels, restau­rants, ware­hous­es, and gas sta­tions among oth­er es­tab­lish­ments, as well as those em­ployed as se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers and do­mes­tic work­ers.

"When cal­cu­lat­ed, these work­ers will re­ceive a $520.00 in­crease in their month­ly in­come, amount­ing to an in­crease of $6,240.00 in an­nu­al in­come,” the Min­istry’s re­lease ex­plained.

“Ef­fec­tive Jan­u­ary 1, 2024, no work­er should be paid less than the hourly wage of $20.50 which equates to $164.00 for an 8-hour work­day, $820.00 for a 40-hour work­week, and a month­ly rate of $3553.33," it stat­ed.

The Labour Min­istry notes that its Labour In­spec­torate Unit—which is re­spon­si­ble for mon­i­tor­ing and en­forc­ing the Min­i­mum Wages Act and Or­ders—con­tin­ues to en­sure com­pli­ance with these laws.  It re­ports that in the past year (2023), it has col­lect­ed over $1 mil­lion in ar­rears owed to work­ers through rig­or­ous in­spec­tions, which it de­scribes as “a ma­jor mile­stone”.

In the state­ment, the Min­is­ter of Labour, Stephen Mc Clashie, urged em­ploy­ers to take heed of the New Or­der and con­sult with the Min­istry’s Labour In­spec­torate Unit for in­for­ma­tion on the New-Wage, in or­der to re­duce the num­ber of breach­es to the Min­i­mum Wage Act, as well as to en­sure they are com­pli­ant with the law, and to guar­an­tee fair­ness and eq­ui­ty to work­ers.