Karnataka govt hikes minimum wages, Rs 23,300 must for unskilled work in Bengaluru

Bengaluru: Karnataka has notified new minimum wages for organised and unorganised sectors per which an unskilled person should be paid Rs 23,376 per month in the Greater Bengaluru Area.

The minimum wage for a highly skilled worker in the state capital has been fixed at Rs 31,114 per month, according to the labour department notification issued late Friday night.

Outside Bengaluru, the minimum wage for unskilled work ranges from Rs 19,300 to Rs 21,251.

Labour Minister Santosh Lad said the government has hiked minimum wages by 60 per cent.

“We’ve fulfilled a long-pending demand of the state’s labourers. The revision will provide economic security to workers,” he added.

The revised minimum wages will apply to 81 scheduled employments, benefitting around two crore workers in the organised and unorganised sectors.

Minimum wages are revised once every five years, with the existing figure in Karnataka being roughly Rs 15,000 for unskilled workers. The Karnataka Employers’ Association (KEA) described the minimum wage revision as “steep”.

Karnataka has relied on the landmark Supreme Court judgment in the Reptakos Brett case, which mandated fixation of minimum wages based on the cost of food, clothing, shelter, education and medicinal needs.

This notification has come more than a year after the labour department issued a draft of the minimum wages. It is learnt that a few ministers in the Cabinet opposed the minimum wage revision on the grounds that the rates were “too high” for employers and businesses to afford.

For the purpose of minimum wages, all workers have been divided into four categories based on skill levels -- highly skilled, skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled. The location of work has been put under three categories: zone-1 (GBA), zone-2 (all district centres and city corporations) and zone-3 (all other regions).

In a circular, KEA president BC Prabhakhar said the final notification on minimum wages had “legal infirmities”.

According to Prabhakar, the final notification has been issued under the Minimum Wages Act, which he said was "repealed by the Code on Wages that kicked in from November 2025, and hence [the notification] is without the authority of law.”

Prabhakhar also argued that the Code on Wages had abolished the concept of Scheduled Employments.

The notification also violates a High Court order, Prabhakar said. The court, he said, had held that no order passed by the minimum wage advisory board at its July 29, 2025 meeting or subsequently shall be implemented till the next date of hearing.