Wages in Uruguay, 1930-1950

Abstract

The report identifies, examines and compares the main statistical data which are available to study wages between 1930 and 1950. In 1943 a law created the tripartite Wages Councils with the assignment of fixing minimum wages per occupation in economic activities groups. This new source of information was unexplored yet and those decisions allowed designing an indicator of wage levels of urban workers and employees at the private sector that shows a rise in those real wages of 38% from 1945 to 1950. The author analyses the series and concludes that the available information before 1944 is unable to build a wages index but allows identifying the main courses, the real wages fall in the 1929-1933 crises, the partial recover later and the low levels in 1943.