The Minister of Employment and Labour, Mr. Refiloe Masemene has announced the statutory minimum wages for private sector as ranging between 2.87 and 17 percent with effect from October 01.

Other sectors to be affected by the announcement include; factories, construction, hospitality, wholesale and retail, service sector, transport, small businesses and domestic workers.

In his statement in the National Assembly on Friday, Mr. Masemene, said, the highest increment has been on wholesale and retail sector, while the lowest has been on service sector.

He added that there has also been some changes on service sector as cleaning services has been included to avoid varying wages, whereby some workers are being cheated due to lack of standardised control of wages.

Another improvement, he said, is that all women workers who fall under the 2007 Labour Code Wages Amendment Order and have full year service with the same employer will get paid maternity leaves of six weeks.

However, the Minister said, the six weeks maternity leave is short but it is a great achievement as before this improvement was only the employer's decision to pay workers maternity leave or not.

Mr. Masemene further said, the General Minimum Wage for 2007/2008 has been set for the private sector, which stipulates clearly how much employees should be paid.

He added that despite the minimum wage that has been agreed upon, employers who could afford to pay their employees more than the general minimum wage are free to do so.

‘Legal action would be taken against employers who will fail to abide by the new improved wages, ‘he said.

Source: LENA 12/10/2007