{"id":1807,"date":"2008-10-07T21:19:45","date_gmt":"2008-10-07T13:19:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/maddruid.com\/?p=1807"},"modified":"2012-03-05T15:42:13","modified_gmt":"2012-03-05T07:42:13","slug":"1801-of-skilled-workers-require-minimum-wages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/?p=1807","title":{"rendered":"[1801] Of minimum wages as a tool to retain local talent in a free flow of labor environment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Today:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Subramaniam said while the Government did not agree on the implementation of a minimum wage for all workers, it recognised that it was necessary to offer decent salaries as the country was losing its skilled employees to its competitors.<\/p>\n<p>\u201dWe are losing our skilled workers to Singapore and the Middle East. We may end up losing even more so we must come up with attractive salaries as a way of persuading them to stay on. [<a href=\"http:\/\/thestar.com.my\/news\/story.asp?file=\/2008\/10\/7\/nation\/20081007154920&amp;sec=nation\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Council to look into salaries of electronics, textile sectors<\/em><\/a>. Sim Leoi Leoi. October 7 2008]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Basically, it is an idea to use minimum wages as a tool to retain local talent.<\/p>\n<p>I do not think that it is a good idea. Consider the following scenarios and questions.<\/p>\n<p>If there is free flow of labor as the Minister suggests, then it is far better to let employers and employees to negotiate with each other and decide what levels of wages are the best for both. If the businesses really need the talent, then the employers will offer wages high enough to effectively match wages offered outside of the country. For brevity, let us call this kind of wages as parity wages.<\/p>\n<p>If there is no or little need for the talent, then there will be no parity wages. And when there is no or little need for such talent, would imposition of minimum wages help keep talent local? How does the Minister plan to keep talent local if there is no need or little need for such talent in the first place?<\/p>\n<p>As for businesses based locally but unable to offer parity wages and yet are able to find willing talent, would minimum wages, which increases the cost of factor of production for the business help increase hiring? How would imposition of minimum wages encourage job creation in the country? How would imposition of minimum wages ensure that the businesses do not close down or migrate to somewhere cheaper, and hence, worsen employment opportunites in the country?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today: Subramaniam said while the Government did not agree on the implementation of a minimum wage for all workers, it recognised that it was necessary to offer decent salaries as the country was losing its skilled employees to its competitors. \u201dWe are losing our skilled workers to Singapore and the Middle East. We may end [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[1284],"class_list":["post-1807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","tag-minimum-wage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1807"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1807\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9885,"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1807\/revisions\/9885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}