THE Wages Council is putting together proposals for the respective Wages Regulation Order that will be given to the Minister for Labour for his consideration.
Labour Ministry permanent secretary Taito Waqa said the minimum wage and the sectoral wages needed to reflect productivity in the labour sector.
"There are 10 wages councils dealing with respective sectoral wage determinations," he said.
"We have already started with the meetings of the Wages Councils.
"The chairman has asked us to extend the time beyond May so that all the 10 councils can put their proposals to the minister," said Mr Waqa.
All proposals are expected to come through to the minister for his consideration by the end of this month or the latest in June.
Mr Waqa said the Wages Council looked at national economic indicators such as the consumer price index, inflation rate and other relevant social indicators when putting its proposal together.
"We have actually used the International Labour Organisation criteria in the determination of sectoral minimum wages."
"It is basically looking at the economy.
"There are six sets of criteria and the social partners have agreed on the narrowed down version of the criterion that is relevant to Fiji.
"One of the important criteria apart from Consumer Price Index is the labour productivity growth rate.
"We need to go towards productivity-based wage rate.
"We need productive people and understand that we need to improve the efficiency or how we utilise our labour. "
"That is not to say to work hard but to work smart in the modern way of looking at it," said Mr Waqa.
The government last year announced a 10 per cent increase for nine industrial private sectors, including the hotel and catering, garment, sawmilling and logging industries along with the mining, printing, wholesale and retail and the security services sectors.