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Paraguay government formalizes 'balanced' 5% minimum wage adjustment
🇵🇾 Paraguay /Economy & Trade

Paraguay government formalizes 'balanced' 5% minimum wage adjustment

From ABC Color · () Spanish

Translated from Spanish, summarized and contextualized by DistantNews.

At a glance

News Official statement New plan
  • The Paraguayan government has officially approved a 5% increase in the minimum wage, effective July 1.
  • The new minimum wage will be 3,044,000 guaraníes per month, approximately $500 USD.
  • Business and labor representatives have expressed dissatisfaction, citing legal non-compliance and insufficient increases, respectively.

The Paraguayan government has officially enacted a 5% adjustment to the minimum wage, which will take effect on July 1. The new monthly minimum wage is set at 3,044,000 Paraguayan guaraníes, equivalent to approximately $500 USD based on current exchange rates. The daily minimum wage is now 117,077 guaraníes, or just over $19 USD.

balanced

— Santiago PeñaParaguayan President Santiago Peña's description of the 5% minimum wage increase.

President Santiago Peña defended the increase as "balanced," despite facing rejection from both employers and workers. The Paraguayan Labor Code mandates that the annual inflation rate serves as the basis for minimum wage adjustments. The inflation rate between May 2025 and May 2026 stood at 2.4%, according to data from the Central Bank of Paraguay.

This is yet another demonstration that legal insecurity is one of the main, if not the most important, weaknesses of our system, and it truly jeopardizes private investment.

— Iván DumotIván Dumot, president of the Center of Importers of Paraguay, commenting on the minimum wage adjustment.

Business leaders voiced concerns about legal consistency. Iván Dumot, president of the Center of Importers of Paraguay (Feprinco), argued that the adjustment should have strictly followed the interannual variation of the Consumer Price Index (IPC) as stipulated by law. "This is yet another demonstration that legal insecurity is one of the main, if not the most important, weaknesses of our system, and it truly jeopardizes private investment," Dumot stated.

the debate is not about whether the salary increase 'is much or little', but about non-compliance with current regulations.

— Enrique DuarteEnrique Duarte, president of the Paraguayan Industrial Union, on the minimum wage issue.

Enrique Duarte, president of the Paraguayan Industrial Union (UIP), echoed Dumot's sentiment, emphasizing that the core issue is not the amount of the increase but the government's failure to adhere to existing regulations. Meanwhile, labor representatives found the increase insufficient. José Pineda, vice president of the Authentic Unitary Workers' Central (CUT-A), expressed that the raise does not adequately compensate for the loss of purchasing power experienced by workers, who had requested an increase of at least 20%. The decision followed a month of negotiations by the National Council of Minimum Wages (Conasam) that concluded without a consensus between government, employer, and worker representatives.

We expected more, particularly for me, it seems insufficient because the loss that labor has is much more significant.

— José PinedaJosé Pineda, vice president of the Authentic Unitary Workers' Central, on the minimum wage increase.
DistantNews Editorial

Originally published by ABC Color in Spanish. Translated, summarized, and contextualized by our editorial team with added local perspective. Read our editorial standards.

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