After months of back-and-forth in cabinet over various wage hike proposals, Lebanese employers will finally face the inevitable. Wage Hike Decree (WHD) no. 7424 will have most employers opting for the “survival of the fittest” course in containing rising costs that could, otherwise, heavily impact their books. The WHD will impose itself on companies’ income statements in two principal ways. The first is in the form of higher cash flows costs, from which there is no real escape. Employers may opt for cost-cutting strategies (such as cutting jobs, enforcing part-time work, putting expansion plans on hold, etc.) but at the end of the day, most companies will feel the impact. The second will appear in the form of higher non-cash accounting provisions within the income statements, such as the end-of-service indemnity provisions. Employers are fully aware that few fair measures for bypassing the higher cash flows exist; the question is
