Parliament decided: The minimum wage will be 50% of the national average

The Parliament on February 1 conclusively decided that the minimum wage should be 50% of the national average.

The decision stipulates that the amount for the next year will be determined by September 1 of the current year in the amount of 50 percent of the average salary for the country for a period of 12 months. These include the last two quarters of the previous year and the first two of the current year.

The decision enters into force 3 days after its promulgation in the "State Gazette". The procedure starts from September 1 and takes effect from the new year.

"Convinced that half a million Bulgarians need support, we are happy to say that thanks to our persistence, the National Assembly on February 1 decided that the minimum wage will be 50% of the average. According to rough calculations, this means that the wage will increase by about 100 BGN. Unfortunately, the chamber did not accept that this should happen this year, because the caretaker cabinet did not submit a budget for 2023. Now the crisis is very severe, it is difficult to survive and now we have to help. We hope that in April we will have a regular government that will submit budget for 2023. Many systems started to struggle because there is no budget," commented the leader of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), Kornelia Ninova.

The trade unions were not satisfied with the accepted formula for calculating the minimum wage.

"Today, the Bulgarian Parliament finally found a formula for the minimum wage. On the one hand, the formula is correct, but on the other hand, it is not. 50% minimum to average wage does not allow to test this adequacy of the minimum wage. The fixing is wrong. This was a partial victory for Bulgarian workers. When we raise the minimum wage, it's not for these 500,000 workers, it's for all households and businesses," said Luboslav Kostov from KNSB (CITUB) trade union.

"An imperative text was adopted - that the minimum wage be exactly 50% of the average. This means that the social dialogue in the National Council for Tripartite Cooperation is meaningless. If someone expects that the minimum wage is determined by X+Y=Z... .we should not simplify economic efforts. It will not come into force from the first of July, unfortunately. They said: "We are not interested in the impoverishment of the Bulgarian worker". Our proposal has always been a mechanism for automatic adjustment of the minimum wage", said Vanya Grigorova from “Podkrepa” union.