AZE.US
Azerbaijan’s minimum wage could move closer to 550 manats if the government moves ahead with a proposal to bring the lowest pay level closer to the country’s average monthly salary.
Member of Parliament Vugar Bayramov said the minimum wage should be reviewed at least once a year under recent changes to labor legislation. The rule was approved by President Ilham Aliyev in February, meaning the government is expected to revisit the minimum wage within the following year.
Bayramov said Azerbaijan’s current minimum wage stands at 400 manats, while the average monthly salary is about 1,100 manats. That means the minimum wage is roughly 36.3% of the average salary.
The lawmaker said the target should be to raise that share to at least 50%. Based on the current average salary, that would put the minimum wage near 550 manats.
If the average salary rises to 1,200 manats, Bayramov said, the minimum wage should not be lower than 600 manats under the same approach.
He acknowledged that such an increase may be difficult to implement in one step because of the fiscal burden. But he argued the process should not be stretched over a long period and could be phased in over one or two years.
Bayramov said the minimum wage needs to rise faster than the average salary if Azerbaijan wants to reduce the gap. For example, if the average wage grows by 9% in a year, the minimum wage may need to increase by 15% to 16% to bring the two indicators closer together.
The impact would go beyond the lowest-paid workers. Bayramov said that when the minimum wage rises, the Cabinet of Ministers also reviews salaries under the unified tariff scale. That means pay increases may affect workers in the public sector who are not classified as civil servants.
According to Bayramov, an increase in the minimum wage could affect more than 700,000 people.
He also linked the discussion to wider labor market reforms, including equal pay for men and women doing the same or equivalent work. Bayramov said women in Azerbaijan currently earn about 70% of what men earn on average, leaving a gap of roughly 30%.
The new labor rules are intended to require employers in both the public and private sectors to provide equal pay for equal work under equal conditions. Bayramov said this should also apply to remote work.
Still, he noted that enforcement will be critical. Labor contracts may formally describe one set of duties, while the actual workload differs in practice.
Bayramov also pointed to a deeper problem in Azerbaijan’s labor market. More than 5 million people are considered employed, but only about 1.8 million work under formal labor contracts. That leaves a large part of employment outside full legal regulation.
For that reason, he said, stronger oversight of labor relations will be essential if the new rules are to produce real changes in wages and workplace protections.
AZE.US