In: Zeitgeister, Goethe-Institut

According to the International Labour Office (ILO), over a hundred and therefore more than half of all countries in the world had national minimum wage regulations in 2020. In other words, each of these independent countries has a statutory minimum wage, which, however, varies widely in amount and level from one country to another. The countries without a minimum wage are mostly in the Global South, but they also include a few Scandinavian countries and Austria. In Austria, wages in the lower wage groups are by large negotiated through collective agreements, so there is no need for a state-imposed minimum wage. Ideally, the chance of a global minimum wage would lie in the fact that after its introduction there should not be a single employee worldwide who would be paid below this defined wage threshold. Read more.