By Sri Lanka’s informal sector is seeing a slight wage hike but due to inflation real wages are in decline.
The daily wage of a worker in Colombo has increased to about three thousand rupees per day from about two thousand rupees which were paid a year ago but with inflation, in the range of sixty percent, this is a decline in real terms.
According to official data, the agriculture sector’s nominal wages had climbed 28 percent within the last year but due to inflation real wages were down 11 percent.
Food prices have increased by ninety 90 percent within the last year and any increases in wages have been offset by inflation created by large-scale printing of money.
The Informal industry wages have registered a similar pattern, wages were up by 26 percent but the decline in real-time wages has been down by twenty percent by June.
In the informal services sector rupee wages were up 30 percent over a year but were down 17.9 percent after inflation.
Certain companies and projects have started paying travel allowances to encourage workers to report to duty and ensure delivery of services on time.
this trend may continue for some time and it may trigger demands for salary increases, mostly from the salaried workers who have very few avenues to increase income to a level that could CPE up with inflation.
The government is encouraging public servants to find employment elsewhere to ease off the pressure on the salary bill in the state sector.
