The Barbados Employers’ Confederation (BEC) is calling on Government to let the Minimum Wage Board be allowed to do its job after recent announcement of increases for 2025 and 2026.
While the organisation said it remained committed to a fair and balanced approach to minimum wage determinations, it stressed it was important to respect the process established to do so.
“This decision, made before the Minimum Wage Board has completed its mandated review, departs from the established process of tripartite engagement and pre-empts the board’s critical role in analysing economic data, consulting stakeholders and subsequently presenting recommendations for any proposed minimum wage adjustments based on the evidence,” the BEC stated in a release yesterday.
“The board was created to ensure decisions are informed, inclusive and sustainable. Implementing increases without comprehensive analysis risks significant economic consequences. Minimum wage changes do not occur in isolation – they create ripple effects that raise operating costs, which might put a strain on business sustainability and, regrettably, threaten job creation – or, in severe cases, result in job losses.
“We reaffirm our commitment to fair and equitable pay. At the same time, adjustments to the minimum wage must be approached with careful consideration, ensuring they are balanced against broader economic realities and sector-specific factors critical to sustaining growth and employment.”
No comment
When contacted yesterday, Minister of Labour Colin Jordan indicated he was not in a position to speak at that time and would return the call. However, subsequent attempts to reach him proved futile.
It was at the end of May that Jordan announced the minimum wage would increase from $8.50 per hour to $10.50 an hour and from $9.25 an hour to $11.43 for security guards. Cabinet also adopted the recommendation from the Minimum Wage Board that individuals on apprenticeships or work experience programmes not exceeding three months would be paid 85 per cent of the minimum wage.
“We are very clear that people have to be able to eat. They have to be able to look after their dependants and so these are matters that we take into consideration,” the Minister said.
“We also take into consideration that employers and businesses have to be sustainable, and we are satisfied that the increase in the national minimum wage will not make businesses unsustainable.”
Earlier this month, the Ministry of Labour announced via a release through the Barbados Government Information Service that there would be a further increase effective January 21, 2026. This time, the national wage would rise from $10.50 to $10.71, and the security sector rate from $11.43 to $11.66.
The increases were approximately six months apart.
“If the minimum wage is subject to frequent, unreviewed annual increases, it introduces instability and unpredictability into the market, which ultimately risks placing undue pressure on the very businesses and workers the policy is designed to support,” BEC further noted.
“Therefore, the BEC urgently calls for all future minimum wage adjustments to go through the Minimum Wage Board. Let the board do the work it was established to do – so decisions concerning minimum wage are fair, sustainable and truly serve the best interest of workers, employers and the national economy.”
For employers seeking to circumvent the increase to their wages bill by reducing the weekly hours of workers, Jordan also addressed this earlier this month.
“We hope we don’t get to a situation where, rather than giving an hourly rate, we have to give a weekly rate. It will make a mockery of the hourly rate if workers consistently get 22 or 24 hours per week . . . and still cannot keep body and soul together.”
He and government backbencher Toni Moore, who is also the general secretary of the Barbados Workers’ Union, said the minimum wage, which was introduced in 2021, aimed to provide workers with a basic standard of living, reduce hardship and give families a fairer shot at stability.
(SAT)
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