A series of meetings on the minimum wage increase and the government reform to make labor market more attractive and sure that workers receive higher pays continued at RHG Sh.p.k,  a company founded in 2018 and hiring 25 employees and now operating in the hospital and leisure sector with more than 233 workers now, where the Prime Minister Edi Rama met with workers and executives of the successful entrepreneurship in application of the stable pay rise practices.

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Thank you very much for having us and thank you everyone for participating!

We have embarked on this round of meetings together with the Finance Minister and the Health and Social Protection Minister to raise voice also about the indispensability that time is now high for Albania and the Albanian entrepreneurial community, the main engine pushing the country’s economy forward, can no longer play with fire.

Playing with fire today implies one failing to offer a decent pay to workers.

Playing with fire today means that you fail to realize or pretend as if you are unable to figure out that we have ushered in a new competitive era that is going to become increasingly fierce in terms of managing human resources.

At a time when human resources are becoming increasingly more and more precious, because the world, and more precisely Europe, is aging and Europe’s aging is accompanied by an ever greater need for a new workforce and therefore facing a looming crisis as one cannot find abundant number of people to hire domestically and therefore are seeking to recruit foreign workers and, indeed, as we enter a new stage of development based on tourism as one of the main pillars it is necessary that we ensure the working force. But in order for a company to maintain a stable workforce, it should treat its workers with all due respect by offering them a decent pay, just like it is the case with this company and it is such a policy that makes this company a successful one. This is actually what makes the difference. Fortunately there are a significant number of such companies, but many other private firms still run away with the idea that by having 54% of their workers with a minimum wage they would survive this era.

The abovementioned figure, representing around half of the hospitality and leisure sector employees with a bottom wage, reveals a much bigger problem we encounter and we are not just talking about it, but we will also act, because it shows tax evasion.  It doesn’t show only tax evasion, but also the employment exploitation by not declaring their real wage, because it is absolutely not true that all these workers receive a minimum wage, because nobody would accept taking up a minimum-paid job position, except for some very difficult economic realities and hardship, but which is not actually the case with main tourist destinations across the country. Nobody would take up such a low-paid job, but by declaring a minimum wage rate and by paying unreported cash payments to such individuals, an entrepreneur actually robs his workers of their pension right, he robs them of the right to receive decent health care service based on their social insurance contributions.

Human capital is the most important factor today.

We won’t allow any private construction company to participate in the government tenders and receive taxpayers’ money if such companies pretend to pay their workers a minimum monthly wage, because it is impossible for any worker to take up a job in such a difficult sector and accept a minimum wage.

Second, no private companies will be allowed to participate in tenders if they provide unreported cash payments to workers.

Third, we will not issue construction permits to any private companies seeking to construct residential buildings with workers denied a decent pay and such a rule will soon be applied also to other companies that demand public services. They will be denied public services. We can’t support them by using the Albanian taxpayers’ money and the state budget money and the state works and functions thanks to the taxpayers’ money.

Thank you very much!