4-8-2023 (KUALA LUMPUR) According to official data released by the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM), Malaysia’s median monthly wage for citizen formal employees in March stood at 2,600 ringgit ($572). The data revealed that there were approximately 6.45 million citizen formal employees in the country during that period.
Among the formal employees, male workers accounted for 55.5% or a total of 3.58 million individuals, with a median monthly wage of 2,664 ringgit. On the other hand, female employees constituted 44.5% of the total, earning a median monthly wage of 2,545 ringgit.
Compared to March 2022, both male and female formal employees experienced an increase in their median monthly wages, with a growth rate of 8% and 8.6% respectively.
The DOSM’s data also highlighted that the age groups of 45 to 49 and 40 to 44 had the highest median monthly wages at 3,500 ringgit. Collectively, these two age groups represented nearly 20% of the total formal employees. However, the median monthly wage started to decline for the age group of 50 to 54, reaching 3,400 ringgit in March. On the other end of the spectrum, employees below the age of 20 received the lowest median monthly wage of approximately 1,500 ringgit.
In terms of sectors, all industries recorded an increase in median monthly wages in March. The mining and quarrying sector, although representing only 0.5% of the total formal employees, had the highest median monthly wage at 7,500 ringgit. Conversely, the agriculture sector had the lowest median monthly wage of 1,900 ringgit, showing a year-on-year growth rate of 8.9%.
The DOSM’s data also revealed that 34.8% of the total formal employees earned below 2,000 ringgit per month. However, this proportion decreased from 40.2% in March 2022, which could be attributed to the minimum wage increase implemented in May 2022. Additionally, approximately 5.2% of the formal employees earned wages at the highest level of 15,000 ringgit and above. The data indicated that the highest wage recipient group earned more than six times the wages of the lowest wage recipient group.
It is important to note that 1 ringgit is equivalent to 0.22 U.S. dollars.
