Today, Department of Statistics, Malaysia (DOSM) for the first time released Employee Wages Statistics (Formal Sector) Report, First Quarter 2023. These statistics are compiled based on the administrative records received from relevant agencies.
The release of this report was the first product that has been successfully published using the Pangkalan Data Utama (PADU) initiative, which involves the integration of various administrative data related to the labour market. This publication which focuses on citizen who works in formal sector, presents a Malaysia’s workforce landscape, encompassing statistics of wages paid during reference period. The wages estimated in this publication refer to all monetary rewards including bonuses, commissions and allowances paid to employees for work performed during the reference period.
Chief Statistician Malaysia, Dr. Mohd Uzir Mahidin said, “Median monthly wages in March 2023 for citizen formal employees is RM2,600, with the number of citizen formal employees accounted to 6.45 million persons. In terms of gender, in March 2023, male formal employees constitutes 55.5 percent or 3.58 million persons with monthly median wages of RM2,664.
Meanwhile, 44.5 percent of total formal employees comprises of female employees, which equivalent to 2.87 million persons with median monthly wages of RM2,545. Compared to March 2022, the median monthly wages for both male and female formal employees showed an increasing trend of 8.0 percent and 8.6 percent, respectively.”
Looking at wages situation by age group, Dr. Mohd Uzir Mahidin said, “The highest median monthly wages in March 2023 was recorded for formal employees ages 45 to 49 and ages 40 to 44 with RM3,500. These two groups collectively constitute nearly 20 percent of the total formal employees. Subsequently, median monthly wages start to show a decrease for age group 50 to 54 years with median monthly wages of RM3,400 in March 2023. On the other hand, age group below 20 years received lowest median monthly wages amounting to RM1,500 (Mac 2023).”
Commenting further on wages situations by economic activity, the Chief Statistician said, “All sectors recorded an increase in median monthly wages. Mining & quarrying sector, despite only representing 0.5 per cent of the total formal employees, recorded the highest median monthly wages in March 2023 at RM7,500. Meanwhile, the lowest median monthly wages received by Agriculture sector with RM1,900, marking an impressive 8.9 percent year-on-year growth, in March 2023.”
Dr. Mohd Uzir Mahidin added that, “In March 2023, the highest median monthly wages received by W.P. Kuala Lumpur with RM3,927, followed by Selangor at RM2,964 and Pulau Pinang at RM2,627. In contrast, Kelantan, Perlis, and Sabah demonstrates the lowest median monthly wages of RM1,600, RM1,627 and RM1,782 respectively, during the same period.”
In terms of wage distributions in March 2023, the Chief Statistician said, “34.8 percent of total Malaysian’s formal employees earned below RM2,000. However, this proportion decreased from 40.2 per cent recorded in March 2022, likely due to the minimum wage increase starting in May 2022. In the meantime, about 5.2 per cent of total citizen formal
employees earned the highest level of wages (RM15,000 and above). However, wage ratio between the highest wage recipient group (90th percentile) and the lowest wage recipient group (10th percentile) shows that the highest wage recipient group received more than 6 times of wages compared to the lowest wage recipient group.”
