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EPOK: Mayor Nur Mahmudi Ismail has signed off on a recommendation made by the city’s remuneration board to set the local monthly minimum wage to Rp 2.042 million (US$212.04).

The proposal, if approved by the provincial administration, would take effect in January and provide wages 40 percent higher than the current wage of Rp 1.45 million.

Manpower agency head Abdul Haris said that the proposed minimum wage would be 17 percent higher than the standard cost of living, which was set at Rp 1.74 million for a single worker.

“All parties agreed to the decision made during a plenary meeting on Sunday, including representatives from the employers’ association,” Haris said.

The chairman of the Depok office of the Indonesian Employers Association (Apindo), Inu Kertapati, said that the remuneration board could not ignore that neighboring Jakarta and Bekasi have agreed to raise their monthly minimum wages to more than Rp 2 million.

“We faced a dilemma when we decided on the minimum wage, because higher wages would adversely affect the investment climate in Depok,” he said.

Local labor unions had planned to strike from Nov. 19 to 23 if the remuneration board did not agree to a sufficient increase in the minimum wage.