The current vice-president of the Confederação Empresarial de Portugal (CIP), Armindo Monteiro, predicts that “the clouds that will hover over companies next year seem to have dark colors” and therefore 2023 represents “a mix of worries” for the bosses. However, the man who has been appointed as António Saraiva’s most likely successor in the leadership of CIP understands that companies are already working “one way or another” to limit wage losses.
Speaking to Dinheiro Vivo about the new CIP statutes, Monteiro recalls the income and competition agreement reached between the government and the social partners as a document that “already implies” an “effort to reduce the cost of salary income and that wages don’t erode as they would have if there wasn’t an upgrade”.
The aforementioned agreement, reached in October, provides for an increase in the national minimum wage from now 705 euros to 760 euros in 2023 and an increase in the costs of wage increases by 50% in corporate income tax for companies that increase salaries in line with or above 5 .1% this year.
And can companies go further and take other measures to create better wage conditions? “We’ll have to see at the beginning of the year,” he says. First, he continues, it is necessary to understand the evolution of macroeconomic variables.
“At the moment, the news has somewhat normalized [da inflação].We do not experience rampant rates. Inflation is no longer growing as it has for a considerable part of this year, but it is still high. Now it gives the feeling that there is a tendency towards some normalization,” he emphasizes.
According to the National Institute of Statistics (INE), inflation was 9.9% in November and 10.1% in October.
Other challenges for 2023, from the CIP leader’s point of view, are energy costs and capital costs. Although inflation is currently not having “the dimension that was feared”, Armindo Monteiro’s words show that, based on economic data for the first months of the year, “companies may no longer have to take into account the eventual praise the increase in production costs”.
However, “a clear mismatch between supply and demand” remains, which could make it more difficult to maintain employment in 2023. For companies, job creation or labor shortages are related to demographic problems, the level of skills and also “to the recovery of activity”. ” in light of the consequences of the pandemic. “For 2023, it will be a challenge to match supply and demand in the labor market. The solution will certainly be a professional recycling from an educational point of view. It is a challenge,” the CIP deputy defends.
CIP changes articles of association
It was also (but not only) because of these challenges companies face that CIP moved forward with an amendment to its bylaws.
The main change is the reduction of the billing limit from which a company not represented by an association can join the CIP, which goes from the current 50 million euros to 30 million.
Most of the Portuguese business community consists of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and at the moment “there is no company that can put a single CAE into its activities”, he points out. “This change gives us a broader representation, because economic activity is no longer as segmented as it was in other times,” says Monteiro.
Restrictions to a maximum of two four-year terms for each president were also approved. “The term constraint is consistent with good business practice,” argues the CIP leader, indicating that it is also a way to ensure a “rejuvenation” of leadership at each cycle.
The CIP General Board also takes on functions “focused on strategic issues”, while the board focuses on “more operational” functions. In addition to these changes, Armindo Monteiro defends changing the acronym of the confederation. THE
Confederação Empresarial de Portugal is already the name of the organization, but the acronym CIP is retained, preserving the original “matrix of industrial nature” of the entity. Monteiro explains that the aim is not to give up industrial companies, but to make the confederation “broader and extended to all sectors”. “[Com uma designação] more in line with the reality we want,” he argues.
According to an article in Jornal de Negócios, Armindo Monteiro will become the new president of the confederation on October 9. Elections are scheduled for March, but according to the same newspaper, everything points to Monteiro succeeding Saraiva. The board change will have already been communicated to various partner associations and to the government itself.
According to information available on the CIP website, the employers’ federation represents 150,000 companies, guaranteeing 1.8 million jobs whose productivity corresponds to 71% of GDP.
José Varela Rodrigues is a journalist for Dinheiro Vivo
Source: DN
