“Minimum wage increase would be lethal to the economy”, says the Serbian Association of Employers

An increase of the minimum wage in Serbia for 2022 from the current RSD 32,000 to RSD 35,000 will be “lethal”, especially for small and medium enterprises, unless the income increases and the business operations improve by the end of the year, the honorary president of the Serbian Association of Employers, Nebojsa Atanackovic, said today.

He said that the Association had formed teams for negotiations about the minimum wage for the next year, which should begin in the first half of August, and that, in setting the minimum wage, the starting point was always optimistic.

– For the majority of the economy, especially for small and medium enterprises, it would be lethal if the minimum monthly wage was raised to RSD 35,000, that is, by 10%, because that would be based on the assumption that the business had approved by as much, and I’m not sure that anyone has managed to increase their business by that much – Atanackovic said.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic recently said that, for the first time in history, the minimum wage in Serbia in 2022 would not be below EUR 300, that is, RSD 35,000, “which is a great increase and a drastic improvement of the standard”.

Atanackovic said that it was easy for the state sector, which will take money from the budget to increase the salaries, and that the burden would be shouldered by companies which are supposed to fill the budget and pay the increased salaries at the moment when all the costs are increasing.

– Each order from abroad is more expensive, and, in Serbia, the utility costs and the parafiscal charges have increased and the inflation is higher than it is officially calculated – Atanackovic said.

He added that, in case the proposal were increased, the Association would request an adequate compensation, that is, an increase of the non-taxable principal amount.

He said that the Fiscal Council had also proposed for the non-taxable principal amount to be increased and that such earnings should not be subject to taxation anyway.

Unija poslodavaca Srbije

Vlada Republike Srbije

UGS Nezavisnost Beograd

Serbian Association of Employers

Zoran Ristić

Nebojša Atanacković

Aleksandar Vučić

Zoran Đorđević

minimum wage

trade unions