The The Minimum Wage Determination Commission, which met to evaluate the employers' objection on Friday, reduced the increase in the minimum wage from 23.50 percent to 22.98 percent. 

With the new regulation on the increase, there was a decrease of 144 TL in gross and 124 TL in net in the minimum wage announced on May 20. 

The net figure had initially been set at 29,640TL (€848), but has now fallen to 29,520TL.

Public sector workers’ union (Kamu-Is) leader Ahmet Serdaroglu, who represents workers at the TRNC’s minimum wage determination commission, said he had chosen not to vote at the commission’s meeting to reduce the wage on Friday.

“We did not take part because we did not see the need to take part”, he said, adding that the ‘government’ had said they were able to reduce the minimum wage as “they are bringing us cheap meat”, in reference to their plans to import meat from the Netherlands and possibly Spain.

“The government set its sights on the 120TL in the pocket of a minimum wage worker. I do not understand what they are trying to prove. The government does not know what it is doing,” he said.

The TRNC's new gross minimum wage is higher than that of 13 European Union member states.