Only 11.14% of formal workers in the Dominican Republic earn more than 50,000 pesos/month

Most of the jobs with salaries that exceed RD $ 50,000/month are in the public sector.

At a time when the prices of various products and services continue to rise in the Dominican Republic, the salary of the majority of the population remains below the cost of the basic food basket.

According to the Dominican Labor Outlook and collection statistics for April 2021, prepared by the Social Security Treasury (TSS), almost 90% of workers earn less than RD $ 50,000/month. Only 11.14% have income above RD $ 50,000/month.

In April of this year, the cost of the family basket was RD $ 37,931.10, RD $ 994.93 more than in December 2020. According to April of this year, the cost of the family basket increased RD $ 637.57 from January to Central Bank statistics ( BCRD).

The report details that 9.61% of workers earn monthly wages of between RD $ 30,000 and RD $ 50,000; 30.82% earn from RD $ 15,000 to RD $ 30,000; 35.44% receive from RD $ 10,000 to RD $ 15,000; 11.65% from RD $ 5,000 to RD $ 10,000; and 1.34% less than RD $ 5,000.

When broken down by age, most workers who earn more than RD $ 50,000 are between 31 and 55 years old.

Most of the jobs with salaries that exceed RD $ 50.00 are in the public sector, with 138,116 jobs. In the private sector, the figure is 98,990; but in both sectors, most of the salaries oscillate between RD $ 10,000 and RD $ 30,000.

“As of April 2021, the largest number of jobs have salaries between 10,000 and 15,000, followed by jobs with salaries between 15,000 and 30,000, these jobs are mostly concentrated in the service sector with 1,712,344 jobs, followed of the industrial sector with 359,572 jobs,” is specified in the report.

Minimum wage review

This year, a revision of the national minimum wage salary is due to carry out for those workers in the non-sectorized private sector. The last salary increase for this segment was made in 2019. The increase was 14% and placed the highest minimum wage at RD $ 17,610.