Minimum Wage in Peru – Session 4
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): La Petite Mort
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2016/07/01
What is the minimum wage in Lima because everything is centralized? How does that relate to the fashion industry?
The minimum wage in Peru is 750 Soles. In American dollars, it would be around 122 dollars per month. The minimum wage in the country. How we receive this amount is going to change according to the city you live in? Outside of Lima can be very high quality and not expensive, you can get good education. You can transport inexpensively. In Lima, on that budget, it can be very tough. The city is gigantic. You can spend a lot of money to get around because there is not an integrated transport system. It is all particular services.
At the end, it ends up being expensive. Food and education are more expensive. That’s why there’s a lot of people that keep on living in the surrounding parts, the outskirts, of Lima. That’s where I have my workshop. They live far from the main districts of Lima. It is a long road away.
This is how Lima has been growing through the years. The main official district and the people moving for the jobs in the outskirts. That’s how the city has grown with no borders. It has spread all around.
Again, people working in these areas do not have a legal situation. They haven’t bought the area where their house is now. They come in and build around. They stay there for several years. If they stay there for 10 years, they can apply to legalize the space of their own. You don’t really pay for buying the space. So, there are ways to make your life with a small budget in Lima, but that means that you’re going to have access to education or health, or other things.
Again, how does this apply to the fashion industry? To be honest, what I know from the main industry in Lima that is concentrated in emporium. That is, it is a big cluster, where there is a lot of workshops. All of the services you can imagine. In terms of services and production, it might seem like paradise. You can find any type of fabric. You can any type of service. However, a lot of the people that work there. They’re not really legally hired.
So, the company that hired them for the day for that job that they get. They don’t have to pay the rights to the government on behalf of the employee, which allows them to get more money ‘on the low’ or ‘under the table.’ That’s why it is important to produce in mass quantities because the more that they produce, the more they get, because their profits are based on how much they make. That’s why this particular cluster – though it is super interesting to me – I couldn’t find a lot of suppliers to work with me. A lot of tine brands are going to have a hard time. When you’re starting, when you’re doing small prototypes, for good reason it’s hard, because their income depends on that.
There are some international discussions around the precarious – the global precariat – around those that live in uncertainty and do not know if they will have their livelihood, their income, their job, the next day. Does this seem to reflect it?
To be honest, I have a part of my family connected to this cluster. One of my cousins that worked for me. She worked for this industry. At the beginning, she would say that she would have to go early to produce an sewing machine pieces. They gather there. The people with jobs come there in the morning. They say, “We have this thing to do with these pieces.” You would get the job for the day. Once you’ve done it several times, they will know you. They will call you, directly. It is like a job date. When we started talking about the project, she had to participate in the sense that she would not have a fixed job.
She is one of these people that keeps the house together. Her mom and the family, she was always looking for something else like in sewing. Also, she does little repairs for the neighbours. You do what you can because you’re not legally part of any enterprise. That would be probably half of what happens because there’s another side that does work legally. They do work for a company.
They ask for a minimum level of quality. So, the companies that produce need to hire qualified people and keep them because they have a strong orders from abroad. The rest are the ones that produce for the local market that know that the local customer is not really looking for high quality, but for fashionable items at available or low prices. This production or market helps keep the situation of informality.
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