In bringing forward proposals to increase the figure for October, the Employment & Social Security Committee wants to equalise the young person’s minimum pay rate and the adult rate.
Currently adults working in Guernsey have to be paid a minimum of £12.60 an hour, while workers aged 16 or 17, excluding those on apprenticeships, must be paid a minimum of £11.35.
Under the ESS proposal, which is currently out for consultation, the two rates would be harmonised at a new rate of £13.10 from October.
That would still leave the adult rate below Jersey’s minimum wage of £13.59 but it would be higher than those in either the Isle of Man or the UK, where the rates are £12.86 and £12.71 respectively.
While this would represent a big increase for young workers, the minimum wage for adults would only rise by 4%, which is the level of core inflation in Guernsey.
ESS president Tina Bury said this would protect the real value of the minimum wage, but admitted that her committee could not be sure if it complied with the States’ policy of the rate equating to 60% of median earnings, based on a 40-hour week, as no statistics are currently available for median earnings in the island.
Since the minimum wage law was first introduced in Guernsey, the state of the ‘young person’s rate’ has changed several times. Sometimes it has been set below the adult rate, while at other times the two rates have been the same.
Currently it is set according to a formula that it should equate to 90% of the adult rate, but Deputy Bury said her committee did not support the premise that it was acceptable to pay those aged 16 or 17 less than adults for doing the same or equivalent work.
However, she stressed that no final decisions on ESS’s recommendations to the States would be made until the committee had received feedback from those representing both employers and employees.
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