Cambodia - LSGSC Project

High-Level Workshop on Minimum Wage Monitoring

The Labour Standards in Global Supply Chains (LSGSC) project organized a High-Level Workshop on Minimum Wage Monitoring on 26 November 2018 in Phnom Penh.

The Government of Cambodia has announced its intention to extend the coverage of statutory minimum wages to include additional sectors, in addition to the garment sector to which legislative minimum wage floors currently apply. At the same time, the ILO recognizes the importance of monitoring the impacts of minimum wage fixing and adjustment, including in respect of both potential additional sectors, as well as in respect of Cambodia’s garment sector. In this context, the workshop introduced alternative ways that the impacts and effects of minimum wage policies can be monitored so as to ensure that minimum wage setting and adjustment is conducted in a sound, participatory, and evidence-based manner, in line with International Labour Standards (ILS), including in particular the Minimum Wage Fixing Convention (No. 131) and the Minimum Wage Fixing Recommendation (No. 135). Workshop participants included government agencies in charge of labour, government agencies with membership in the Labour Advisory Committee (LAC) and Tripartite Working Group (TWG), as well as research and academic stakeholders. A total of 24 participants took part in the workshop, including 5 female participants.

Purpose of the training

The objectives of the workshop were to introduce a technical tool that could be utilised in measuring the effects of minimum wage fixing and adjustment in Cambodia, and to support a common understanding amongst participants of the current availability and future possibilities of obtaining and analysing relevant data for effective minimum wage monitoring in Cambodia.

Learning outcomes

The workshop helped to bring participants towards a common understanding of importance and value of monitoring the effects and impacts of minimum wage setting and adjustment. To this end, a wage policy monitoring framework and ‘balanced scorecard’ for wage policy monitoring were presented by the ILO. The availability and relevance of data from various sources to inform evidence-based wage policy monitoring was discussed. The importance of coordination amongst the various government actors that bring importance sources of data, information and statistics to the minimum wage monitoring process and system was also discussed. Following the workshop, the ILO committed to following-up with the LAC regarding the design of future technical support activities on minimum wage monitoring.