Minimum Wage Hits 65,554 Dinars, Talks Open August 10

Serbia’s minimum wage stands at 65,554 dinars, or 551 euros, and for the first time it fully covers the minimum consumer basket. Sinisa Mali, First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, said so on August 1 in an interview on Radio Television of Serbia (RTS).

The ratio between the minimum wage and the minimum basket is now 113 percent. Mali set that against 2010 and 2011, when it stood at 61.5 percent, meaning the basket cost more than a third above what the wage floor paid.

For the first time this year, the minimum consumer basket is fully covered by the minimum wage

Fewer than 100,000 people in Serbia earn the minimum wage, according to Mali. That is a narrower group than public debate about pay usually assumes, but it is also the benchmark that sets the bottom of the labour market.

What is being negotiated on August 10?

The Finance Ministry opens talks with employers and trade unions on the minimum wage that applies from January 1. The starting date was announced for the first time in the same interview.

On August 10 we begin negotiations with employers and with unions on the minimum wage from January 1

Whatever figure is agreed does not reach pay slips right away. The number argued over in August shows up only in the January payment, leaving close to five months between the announcement and the effect on a household budget.

From 15,000 dinars to a 650 euro target

The minimum wage was 15,000 dinars in 2010. Today’s 65,554 dinars is roughly 4.4 times higher in dinar terms, though both the exchange rate and the price level moved over that period, which makes basket coverage a sharper indicator than the headline amount.

The government has said the minimum wage will reach 650 euros by the end of 2027. From 551 euros that is a gap of 99 euros, or about 18 percent, to be closed in a little under a year and a half. In practice it means two rounds of increases: the one being negotiated this month and another one a year later.

The same calendar as pensions and public pay

We have already covered the timetable under which pensions rise from December 1 and public sector salaries from January. The minimum wage runs on the same cycle: talks in August, a decision by autumn, application from the first day of the new year.

Mali also said figures on further increases to public sector salaries and pensions will be known within a few weeks. Until then the only fixed date is August 10, when the three sides that set Serbia’s wage floor sit down at the table.