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Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena signed the bill passed in Parliament, making the minimum basic salary for private sector employees 21,000 rupees. Accordingly, the Ministry of Labour and Foreign Employment stated in a press release that this should be considered the minimum wage when calculating payments for the Employees’ Provident Fund, Employee Trust Fund, and gratuity.
From September this year, private sector employers will pay their employees a national minimum wage of 17,500 rupees along with an additional minimum wage of 3,500 rupees provided by the Budget Relief Acts No. 36 of 2005 and No. 4 of 2016, totaling a minimum wage of 21,000 rupees.
According to the press release issued by the Ministry, the new minimum wage should be applied to payments for the Employees’ Provident Fund, Employee Trust Fund, and gratuity.
The National Minimum Wage Act No. 03 of 2016 established a National Minimum Wage for all private sector employees, effective from January 1, 2016. The Act initially set a minimum wage of 10,000 rupees for monthly salaried workers and 400 rupees for daily wage workers.
In 2021, through an amendment to the Act, the minimum monthly wage was raised to 12,500 rupees and the daily wage to 500 rupees, effective from August 2021.
With the recent economic crisis in the country and the rising cost of living, private sector wages have not increased since 2021. Therefore, a draft amendment was submitted to Parliament to increase the National Minimum Wage from 12,500 rupees to 17,500 rupees, an increase of 5,000 rupees, and to raise the daily minimum wage from 500 rupees to 700 rupees, an increase of 200 rupees.
After following the relevant steps, this amendment was passed by Parliament on September 3, 2024, and it is scheduled to be implemented from this month following the signing of the draft by the Honorable Speaker.