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- Australia – 543.78 Australian dollars per week; set federally by the Australian Fair Pay Commission[4]
- Austria – the accepted unofficial annual minimum wage is €12,000 to €14,000[4]
- Belgium – €1,387.49 a month for workers 21 years of age and over; €1,424.31 a month for workers 21 and a half years of age, with six months of service; €1,440.67 a month for workers 22 years of age, with 12 months of service; coupled with extensive social benefits[4][7]
- Canada – set by each province and territory; ranges from C$8.00 to C$10.00 per hour
- Taiwan – NT$17,280 a month; NT$104 per hour[4]
- Denmark – negotiated between unions and employer associations; 100.65 kroner, according to the terms of the country’s largest collective bargaining agreement, negotiated in the spring of 2008 and covering almost the entire industrial sector[4]
- Finland – the law requires all employers, including nonunionized ones, to pay minimum wages agreed to in collective bargaining agreements; almost all workers are covered under such arrangements[4]
- France – €8.82 per hour; €1,337.70 per month for 151.67 hours worked (or 7 hours every weekday of the month)[19]
- Germany – for construction workers, electrical workers, janitors, roofers, painters, and letter carriers; set by collective bargaining agreements in other sectors of the economy and enforceable by law[4]
- Greece – €680.59 a month[22]
- Hong Kong – bill for city-wide minimum wage introduced[25]
- Iceland – minimum wages are negotiated in various collectively bargained agreements and applied automatically to all employees in those occupations, regardless of union membership; while the agreements can be either industry- or sector-wide, and in some cases firm-specific, the minimum wage levels are occupation-specific[4]
- Ireland – €8.65 per hour[27]
- Israel – approximately 47.5 percent of the average wage, or 3,850 Israeli new sheqel per month[4][29]
- Italy – instead set through collective bargaining agreements on a sector-by-sector basis[4]
- Japan – ranges from 618 Japanese yen to 739 yen per hour; set on a prefectural and industry basis[4]
- South Korea – 3,770 South Korean won per hour; reviewed annually[4]
- Luxembourg – €1,570.28 per month for unqualified workers over 18; €1,256.22 for those aged 17–18; €1,177.71 for those aged 15–17; €1,884.34 for qualified workers[33]
- Netherlands – €1,398.60 per month, €322.75 per week and €64.55 per day for persons 23 and older; between 30-85% of this amount for persons aged 15–22[36]
- New Zealand – NZ$12.75 per hour for workers 18 years old or older, and NZ$10.20 per hour for those aged 16 or 17 or in training; there is no statutory minimum wage for employees who are under 16 years old[37]
- Norway – wages normally fall within a national scale negotiated by labor, employers, and local governments[4]
- Portugal – €470 per month for full-time workers, rural workers, and domestic employees ages 18 and older[4][43]
- Singapore - no laws or regulations[4]
- Spain – €633.30 per month[47]
- Sweden – set by annual collective bargaining contracts[4]
- Switzerland – a majority of the voluntary collective bargaining agreements contain clauses on minimum compensation, ranging from 2,200 to 4,200 francs per month for unskilled workers and from 2,800 to 5,300 francs per month for skilled employees[4]
- United Kingdom – £5.80 per hour (aged 22 and older), £4.83 per hour (aged 18–21) or £3.57 per hour (under 18 and finished compulsory education)[50]
- United States – the federal minimum wage is US$7.25 per hour; states may also set a minimum, in which case the higher of the two is controlling
Proposing the complete removal of levies and relying on dependency ratios is like dropping an economic bombshell equivalent to an economic coup.
No Singaporean worker will support it. Even the factory worker knows he will be severely disadvantaged immediately and a few may even get fired. It will lead to discrimination of the Singaporean worker in the medium to long term, especially if his work is disrupted by NS.
Very few university professors, trade unionists, human resource practitioners, forum letter-writers will support it. I am very sure even employers may join in to condemn it.
Pricing mechanisms are flexible. It can be adjusted quickly to market conditions. Using brute force like manipulating dependency ratios is inflexible and may lead to the collapse of companies.
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