LABOR Secretary Silvestre Bello III is for an increase in the daily minimum wage of workers but not in the amount demanded by a trade union.
Bello on Sunday also clarified that Labor department has not decided on a P20-wage hike, saying that it is the tripartite wage board that decides when to raise the minimum pay and by how much.
The government needs to see first if employers can afford to grant a wage hike to employees, Bello said in an interview on Super Radyo dzBB.
If the wage increase is too much, you only end up retrenching workers, he said.
A a big labor group filed a petition in June asking for a P320 wage increase. However, the group said it plans to revise the petition to ask for a higher increase, factoring in the 6.2-percent inflation rate in the third quarter of the year.
Bello said granting of minimum wage increases is beyond the powers of the Department of Labor and Employment. That is within the powers of Congress.
Bello added that the Regional Tripartite Wage Board is the one that recommends wage adjustments after having conducted public hearings on the issue.
He said he was not sure of the amount of wage hike but he said that it would not be lower than P20.