Inflation: Labour Pushes For Minimum Wage Increases In 2025

The organised labour organisation advocates for an annual rise in Nigeria’s minimum wage of ₦70,000.

According to Labour, it is critical that workers’ minimum wages stay up with annual inflation rises.

“What we are advocating for Labour is that instead of waiting five years to raise the minimum wage, you will now examine the inflation over the last five years and attempt to make some adjustments.

“Why can’t we reflect inflation on an annual basis?” TUC President Festus Osifo stated.

The president of the Trade Union Congress (TUC) stated that members of the organisation, as well as colleagues in the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), had began discussions in this respect.

“For example, we have entered January 2025; by the 15th of January 2025, the National Bureau of Statistics is going to release the inflation figure for December,” he told me.

Labour suggests adopting a 35% inflation rate to the ₦70,000 minimum salary to represent its actual value.

“When we get to 2026, you will submit a similar application. That is really what we are promoting. We should not be waiting five years.

The new Act specifies a three-year timetable for making adjustments, but we can adjust the minimum wage systemically by using the inflation rate from December of the preceding year.

We will also canvas for this post this year. We began the discourse last year, but we will continue it in 2025.

In July 2024, the federal government and labour unions agreed on a minimum wage of ₦70,000, which President Bola Tinubu later approved.

The increase came five years after the last review pegged it at 30,000. However, with the astronomic rise in the cost of living attributed to a more than quadruple hike in energy costs and petrol subsidy removal, labour unions argued that 70,000 cannot take any worker home and thus demanded a decent living wage.