Minimum wage remains unchanged for most, except service workers

Cayman’s minimum wage, which has been previously described as below the ‘starvation wage’, will remain unchanged until next July when only hospitality and service workers will benefit from a minimum of $7 per hour.

The industry will, however, lose the 25% gratuities benefit that is currently used to supplement wages when the new rate kicks in.

Labour Minister Dwayne Seymour made the announcement in Parliament on Monday morning as he responded to a question from Opposition Leader Roy McTaggart who asked when a decision will be made on the Minimum Wage review report, which was delivered last year.

Seymour said the decision was taken that all sectors, except the hospitality and service industry, will remain at the current minimum wage of $6 per hour, which has been in place since it was first introduced in 2016.

“Effective 1 July 2025, employees of the hospitality and service industry will be the only sector to receive an increase in the minimum wage to $7 per hour,” he said.

The minister went on to say that it was also decided that the current structure for that sector, whereby 25% of the minimum wage can be made up by gratuities will be removed as of 1 July 2025.

This, he said, will be “for the time being until the new Minimum Wage Advisory Committee completes their investigations”.

A $6-an-hour rate is set as the minimum wage for most employees in the Cayman Islands.

Service workers who get gratuities currently earn a minimum hourly rate of $4.50. Special calculations apply for live-in household domestics, as well as employees earning commission.

New review to be initiated

Seymour said a decision was also made to “initiate the reactivation” of a Minimum Wage Advisory Committee with specific instructions to investigate and recommend a “sectorial approach the minimum wage for the Cayman Islands”.

The previous committee, which was led by chairman Lemuel Hurlston, also looked at a similar approach in its review. However, it recommended a new minimum wage of $8.75-an-hour to help low-income workers in the Cayman Islands out of poverty.

However, Seymour said that since the release of the Minimum Wage Advisory Committee’s final report, members of Cabinet have been “debating various approaches” to making changes to the existing minimum wage regime, while “giving careful considerations” to the implications for Caymanians and “general economic concerns”.

Hurlston, when contacted by the Cayman Compass following Seymour’s statement, said he would prefer not to comment on the government’s decision.

“We’ve completed our task, we’ve submitted our report, and I don’t think it’s for us to comment now. It’s for the government. We have no comment to make,” he said.

That committee was constituted in 2022 under former deputy premier Chris Saunders who was also labour minister at the time.

The advisory committee held 37 meetings last year and held multiple surveys to gauge the community’s views on whether the islands needed to change its $6 minimum wage.

The Committee’s detailed report was submitted to the Ministry of Labour in November following a six month public consultation process costing just over $50,000.

When asked by McTaggart if the committee’s report was rejected by Cabinet, Seymour insisted that was not the case.

“The report is quite extensive, and I want to thank the committee for the work that they did, but they provided a report based on what was asked of them,” he said.

Caucus and members of the government, he said, needed more information and data on the sectorial approach to the minimum wage.

“We couldn’t just do a blanket minimum wage across all sectors because of the economic impact that it may have on Caymanians who may not see an increase in their own salaries,” Seymour said.

He said no new committee has been selected just yet and “this is something that we hope to get started as soon as possible”.

Seymour said he will look towards the previous committee that has just completed its report to pull members for the new review.

The Compass understands that some members have already decided not to participate in this new exercise after having spent months working on the report, which has now been essentially shelved.

Premier misses Parliament

Premier Juliana O’Connor-Connolly has contracted COVID and will miss this week’s Parliament session, a Government Information Services statement Monday morning stated.

The statement, issued just before the start of the fourth meeting of the 2023/2024 Parliamentary Session, confirmed the premier’s diagnosis.

“In her absence, Deputy Premier Andre Ebanks will be Acting Premier while Minster of Tourism and Ports Kenneth Bryan will serve as the Acting Deputy Premier,” it said.

House Speaker Sir Alden McLaughlin, at the start of the Parliament meeting, said he received apologies from the Premier.

Ebanks tabled all the reports listed under the Premier’s name during the meeting.