Wage board sees growing poverty, OKs P8 pay hike

DAGUPAN CITY—Starting Feb. 5, minimum wage earners in the Ilocos region will receive P8 more in their daily salaries, increasing the minimum wage they have been receiving since August 2012 to P213.

The wage increase is contained in Wage Order No. RB1-16, which the Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board issued in December last year.

Grace Ursua, Ilocos regional director of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) and wage board chair, said the increase would benefit workers in microestablishments and nonplantation agriculture businesses.

Microestablishments employ at least 55.1 percent of the total work force in the region, or about 118,847 workers.

“The purpose of the increase is to adjust the floor wage closer to the present poverty threshold level computed at P227 per day,” Ursua said.

She said the new minimum wage rate was reached after a series of public hearings with workers’ and employers’ groups in Laoag and Dagupan cities.

The wage order also granted nonagriculture workers a P9, P11 or P20 increase in their daily wages, depending on the company’s size.

But household or domestic workers, persons employed in the personal service of another, including family drivers, and workers and employees of registered barangay microbusiness enterprises were not included in the wage increase.

The wage order also exempted distressed establishments, retail and service establishments employing not more than 10 workers, and those adversely affected by natural calamities. Gabriel Cardinoza, Inquirer Northern Luzon