We inform you that the Trade Register is suspending its activity between July 16 and July 25. All applications received will be taken over and prepared by the Organic Consulting team and will be resolved after July 25.

Increasing the minimum wage will lead to employee layoffs - SME owners

The National Council of SMEs in Romania conducted a survey between 24-25.07.2023 to identify the opinion of entrepreneurs regarding the increase in the guaranteed gross minimum wage.

Thus, following the survey conducted, to which 887 entrepreneurs responded, the following conclusions emerged:

Asked if they have the possibility of increasing the minimum wage for employees in the coming period, entrepreneurs answered: 86.91% NO.

Among the reasons why they will not be able to increase the minimum wage are high human resource costs, limited sales that do not allow for increases, or ongoing contracts with a fixed price.

When asked how much they could increase the minimum wage, 80.81% of respondents answered that they did not have the possibility, 10.31% of respondents said they could increase it by 200 lei, 6.91% of respondents said they could increase it by 300 lei, and only 21% of respondents said they could increase it by 750 lei.

However, in the event of a government imposition of a minimum wage increase, 93.21% of entrepreneurs mentioned that it could be applied from January 1, 2024, and only 6.81% from September 1, 2023.

Finally, when asked what they believe will be the percentage of reduction in the number of employees as a result of the minimum wage increase, entrepreneurs responded in a proportion of 35.8% that they will reduce between 10%-50%, 34.8% will reduce up to 10%, 19.1% will not reduce staff at all and 10.2% will reduce over 50% of staff.

In terms of organizational form, the respondents were 54.30% microenterprises, 31.5% small enterprises, 13.1% medium-sized enterprises and the remaining 1,10% large enterprises.

Regarding the respondents' field of activity, 64.7% are from services, 18% belong to trade and the remaining 17.3% are manufacturing companies.