The first polling projections in Switzerland indicate voters have overwhelmingly rejected a mandate for the world's highest minimum wage - nearly $25 an hour.

A national projection for Swiss television shows that referendum voters Sunday rejected - by about a three to one margin - what would have been the country's first minimum wage.

Switzerland has some of the world's highest living costs and trade unions had sought in the balloting to require minimum salaries for workers that would total more than $53,000 annually.  The median salary in the Alpine nation is now about $77,000, but pay is set by individual employment contracts or collective bargaining agreements.

The minimum pay referendum was the third in Switzerland in the last 18 months to deal with the increasing gap between rich and poor people. Voters previously adopted restrictions on bonuses for corporate executives, but rejected controls that would have limited their salaries to no more 12 times that of the lowest paid workers.

Unions had sought to impose the minimum wage, but business critics of the effort said it would hurt the country's competitiveness and lead to job cuts, hurting poorer workers it was designed to help the most.

One voter, Rakesh Stehle, said he voted against the measure because he felt adoption of a minimum wage would actually cut salaries for many workers.

"I voted 'no' to the minimum wage because I think companies will take advantage of this and if there is a minimum wage they will impose the minimum wage on companies and it's negative because we will not have the salary we have now," he said. "Life is already very expensive and we should have a wage adapted to suit to the life we have.''

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development says that Luxembourg has the world's highest minimum wage at $10.66 an hour. The United States, with the tenth highest at $7.25, is currently locked in a contentious political debate whether to raise it over the next several years to $10.10 an hour. [Read More]

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Source: VOA News: Economy and Finance