HALF OF MALAYSIANS EARN BELOW USD477 A MONTH

Malaysia, a multi-racial country
(Zafiyah Hussain's compilation)

TRUTH can be very painful, but that is the fact of reality. It has been revealed that at least 50 percent of wage earners in Malaysia presently collect their monthly income for less than MYR2,000 or about USD477 per earner.

The conclusion was made by The Edge Markets in its recent article based on Department of Statistics Malaysia's Salaries & Wages Survey Report 2016.

When median monthly income combined,
it's USD405 or MYR1,703


From MYR1,500 in 2010, the median monthly income increased by 29.4 percent within 6 years or equivalent to  an average of 4.9 percent annually to MYR2,000 in 2016. Out of 10.16 million wage earners, 82.9% were Malaysian citizens and 17.1% were non Malaysian including registered foreign workers.

For comparison, non Malaysian workers' median monthly income was MYR1,200 per earner in the same year. When the income of Malaysian and non Malaysian combined, the median monthly income became about USD405 or MYR1,703.

By ethnicity, Chinese earns highest

By ethnicity, Chinese (20.9%) earns USD560; Malay and other Bumiputras (54.5%) earns USD460; Indian (6.9%) earns USD426; and non-citizen (17.1%) earns USD286.

By gender, male employees earn higher than female workers

By gender, a female employee (37.1%) earns USD401, compared to a male (62.9%) earns USD410.

Urban employees earn much higher than those in rural area

By strata, urban median wage (79.4%) was USD477, compared to rural median wage (20.6%) amounting to USD299 only.

Tertiary education wasn't specified clearly, believed to be with diploma qualification and above

By education level, employees with tertiary education (32%) earn USD780; secondary school (54%) earn USD381; primary school (12%) earn USD286; and workers without formal education (2%) earn USD238 only.

Managers and professionals earn much higher than technicians and below

By occupation, they were divided into nine categories; managers (3%) USD1,310, professionals (16%) USD1,060, technicians (13%) USD657, clerical support workers (11%) USD477, carpentry and related trade workers (9%) USD357, plant and machine operators (14%) USD354, skilled agriculture, forestry, livestock and fishery workers (1%) USD321, sales and services workers (18%) USD292 and elementary occupations (14%) USD262.

Median income by state and federal territory

The highest median income was Putrajaya with USD774, second highest was Kuala Lumpur earning USD595, followed by Selangor with USD562. Kelantan was the lowest earner amounting to USD286 only. Median wage earners in Sabah and Sarawak are USD295 and USD321 respectively.

Najib Abdul Razak
former Malaysian prime minister
& finance minister

In separate reference, Statista.com recorded the economic outlook and inflation rate in Malaysia still appear stable, the inflation rate was still below the global inflation rate. Furthermore, the country's GDP continues to rise and totalled USD326.93 billion in 2013.

Based on the average price increase from each previous year, inflation  rate continuously increased from year to year. 2010 inflation rate was 2%, 2011 (3%), 2012 (2%), 2013 (2.11%), 2014 (3.14%), 2015 (2.1%), 2016 (2.08%) and 2017 (3.8%).

Mahathir Mohamad
present Malaysian prime minister
since June, 2018


The accumulated inflation rate within 7 years from 2010 to 2016 was 16.43% compared to median monthly income increased by 29.4% within the same period. In 2017, the inflation rate was 3.8%, much higher than usual. A total of 20.23% for 2010-2017.

The actual inflation rate could be higher than 16.43% as recorded by Statista. This is because the calculation of the rate was made based on the rate of the year before, not based on the basic average price.

Lim Guan Eng
the new finance minister
since June, 2018

As a conclusion, the increase of median income was at least higher by 12.97% compared to the accumulated inflation rate within 2010 - 2016. It left us with a question. Should this be good enough for the standard of living of median wage earners?



By Fauzi Kadir
Permadu Harmony/Permadu Malaysia
All Rights Reserved
Copyrights Fauzi Kadir 2018

Contact Us
+60 11 1185 9874 Whatsapp
E-mail to permadu@gmail.com

Sources:
Department of Statistics
The Edge Markets
Statista.com

Illustrations from The Edge Markets
Compiled by Zafiyah Hussain
Re-arranged by Fauzi Kadir

All pictures compiled by
Zafiyah Hussain


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