Bangladesh Announces New Minimum Wage For Textile Workers
The Bangladesh government has announced Taka 10,001 or US $91.06 as the gross monthly minimum wage for textile workers. The earlier gross monthly minimum wage set in 2018 was Taka 5,710 or $51.99.
The labour ministry announced new minimum wages for different grades through a gazette notification and the newly announced wages for the textile sector workers would be effective from March 1, 2024.
Earlier, the minimum wage board finalised its proposal recommending Tk 10,000 as the minimum wage in January earlier this year and it had been sent to the labour ministry in mid-March.
The labour ministry announced the wage structure with little change to the one proposed by the minimum wage board.
The government has incorporated 10 grades in the wage structure for textile sector workers and minimum monthly wage for the workers in grade-10 would be Taka 10,001.
The amount includes basic pay Taka 5,162 for upazila town areas, 55 percent of the basic pay or Taka 2,839 as house rent, Taka 750 as medical allowance, Taka 400 as travel allowance and Taka 850 as food allowance.
Grade 10 workers in the district towns and divisional cities would receive house rent at the rate of 60 percent and 70 percent, respectively of the basic pay.
As per the announcement, the new wages would be applicable to all textile mills across the South Asian country and the workers would be entitled for 5 percent wage hike every year.
According to statistics, there are around 7,000 small, medium and big sized textile units across Bangladesh, which collectively employ around 50 lakh people.
