armenpress.am: The parliamentary standing committee on labor and social affairs disapproved the bill submitted by the opposition “Armenia” faction, which proposed to raise the minimum wage from 68,000 drams to 80,000 drams.

Faction MP Aghvan Vardanyan presented the bill on making amendments to the Law on Minimum Monthly Wage during the committee’s session.

The lawmaker reminded that recently the Armenia faction has once again proposed to increase the minimum monthly salary, but the proposal was not included into the agenda of the plenary sessions and was not approved in the committee.

“The draft has been amended. The current draft proposes to set the minimum wage at 80,000 drams”, he said, proposing this regulation to take effect from January 2023.

Deputy Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Ruben Sargsyan presented the conclusion of the government. He reminded that the government’s 2021-2026 action plan envisages taking steps by 2026 to set the wage up to 85,000 drams. “The increase in minimum wage must be accompanied by a respective economic opportunity as a source of funding for the additional costs”, he said.

The deputy minister said that the draft submitted by the MP has no analysis from economic justification perspective. According to him, the unjustified increase in minimum monthly wage could lead to GDP and employment level decline, which could result in inflation pressures. Therefore, he urged to keep the law unchanged.

The bill was disapproved after long debates at the committee.