SOCIO-ECONOMIC ESSENCE AND FUNCTIONS OF MINIMUM WAGES IN THE PRESERVING SYSTEM OF HUMAN POTENTIAL QUALITY OF UKRAINE REGIONS

Abstract

The essence of the minimum wage and its functions in the system of preserving human potential quality of Ukraine regions was considered. The relationship between the minimum wage with the subsistence minimum and other social standards was revealed. The role of material incentives for labor in the process of preserving human potential quality. It was indicated that the most important salary functions are both preserving the quality of human potential of Ukraine regions and maintaining the balance in the labor market. In the complex, this should ensure a sufficient level of incomes protection. The main conclusions of the article are also based on the Decent Work’s Concept, one of the provisions of which is decent wages, as well as in other Conventions and Recommendations of the International Labor Organization. It was determined that the salary organization and its level should be formed with taking into account subsistence minimum size, the poverty line, the basic tariff rate. This is especially true because of the significant poverty indicators in Ukraine, which cover about a quarter of its population. Poverty rates remain high when using different approaches and assessments to its level and depth. Also, a significant problem is the unjustified weakening of labor relations regulation by regulatory and legal methods. It manifests in the untimely conclusion of labor contracts and spreading of informal employment, the neglecting of the commissions creation on the assignment and increasing of tariff-qualification digits for employees. Phased increase of labor remuneration in the country economy, wider use of tariff and qualification networks, the formation of a proportional socially and economically justified ratio of tariff rates, social standards, minimum wages, and a gradual increase in the wages share in the income of the Ukraine population was proposed. The above is a guarantee of a successful solution to the problem of preserving the human potential quality of Ukraine in the part of incomes protection and growth of the welfare. This, in turn, will create conditions for the reproduction of the signs of the human potential quality at a level not lower than already achieved, or at the higher level.