The minimum wage from the beginning of next year will be 64.554 dinars. However, this is not even close to enough to live on, claims the Center for Emancipation Policies
Government of Serbia adopted on Thursday the Decision on the regular increase minimum wage of 371 dinars per working hour, which will be applied from January 1, 2026.
With that increase, the minimum wage will amount to 1 dinars or 64.554 euros from January 551 of the following year.
The minimum salary in 2024 was 404 euros.
The Center for Political Emancipation made a new calculation of the living wage based on inflation in 2024. According to their estimation, the living wage amounts to 150.670 dinars.
It is a salary that is sufficient to cover the basic social and existential needs of workers and their families, just as the minimum wage is described by our Labor Law and the standards of the International Labor Organization, according to the Center. Although the gap between the minimum wage and the living wage is narrowing, it still remains large. The current minimum wage is on average 54.200 dinars and covers 36 percent of what is enough for life, they add.
"In the Labor Law it is written that the minimum wage should satisfy some basic needs in accordance with the minimum consumer basket, but we criticize this alignment because it is not a basket sufficient for life, but necessary money only for survival," Vladimir Simović from the Center for Emancipation Policies told Vreme. "For example, according to the minimum consumer basket, 150 dinars per month is allocated for education."
How did they measure salary?
The calculation of the living wage was based on the research of the international network Clean Clothes Campaign which gathers around 250 organizations and unions from all over the world in the fight for better working conditions in the textile industry.
The Living Wage Declaration, signed by four union headquarters, more than twenty organizations and over 3000 people, can be found on the website http://www.platazazivot.rs .
The minimum is paid only in a crisis
Simović adds that the employer should introduce the minimum wage for a certain period when there is a crisis, and here the minimum wage is a common thing, and often employers pay only 100 or 200 dinars more than that and brag about how they pay workers more than the minimum wage.
Any increase in minimum wages, which are currently below the poverty risk threshold for a three-person household, should be seen as a positive trend, the Center thinks.
"However, the minimum wage should be a guarantee that working men and women are not at risk of poverty, and this is not the case - the minimum wage is still not enough to meet people's basic needs. That is why we need an assessment of the living wage and a development policy that will aim to provide everyone with dignified wages to live on, not survive," they say.
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