Indonesia businesses brace for minimum wage hikes

Jakarta

INDONESIAN businesses are bracing themselves for another year of massive rises in the minimum wage - already among the highest in Asia - as labour unions in Jakarta stage rallies ahead of a hike in the price of subsidised fuel.

Under Indonesian law, local officials have the authority raise the base pay across industrial segments, and manufacturing workers in Jakarta are pushing for a 30 per cent hike in base pay to almost three million rupiah (S$320).

Jakarta's Acting Governor Basuki Purnama has dismissed the demand as "unfounded". (By comparison, garment workers in China, considered the highest paid among the labour-intensive industries in Asia, …