tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-191786838940024989.post1132150216566526609..comments2023-06-26T22:20:04.167+08:00Comments on Rightways: Malaysia's low wages: low-skilled, low productivity, low quality, reliance on cheap foreign workers! Need to manage! righwayshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06748606380615647290noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-191786838940024989.post-38015955830105781082018-04-02T11:49:15.645+08:002018-04-02T11:49:15.645+08:00The main underlying cause of Malaysia’s low-wage e... The main underlying cause of Malaysia’s low-wage environment is the high numbers of cheap foreign workers.<br /><br /> The country should cut back on its foreign worker dependency to drive higher wages for Malaysians across-the-board.<br /><br /> In Malaysia, our salaries and wages are low, as half of the working Malaysians earn less than RM1,700 per month.<br /><br /> It is high time to reform our labour market by creating high-quality, good-paying jobs for Malaysians.<br /><br /> The continuing reliance on foreign workers has resulted in a predominantly low wage-low productivity-low value economy, with many features of a middle-income trap.<br /><br /> On one end of the wage-skill spectrum, the low-skilled jobs are being substituted by easy availability of unskilled foreign workers, thereby keeping the blue-collar wages from rising.<br /><br /> At the other end, skilled job wages are being depressed by insufficient high-wage job creation, weak firm profitability amid rising market competition and excess capacity, industry consolidations and other factors resulting in a slack labour market.<br /><br /> It is worth noting that the share of high-skilled jobs has reduced to 37% in the period from 2011 to 2017, as compared to 45% from 2002 to 2010.<br /><br /> Malaysia has come a long way since its independence, transforming itself from a largely rural agragrian country to a regional economic powerhouse, which is driven by its strong services and manufacturing sectors.<br /><br /> While industrialisation and automation have grown robustly since the 1990s, economists feel that the country has not managed to substantially move up the value chain compared with other countries such as Singapore.<br /><br /> The lack of a high-skilled workforce, low productivity, employment opportunities to cater to high-skilled professionals and the presence of cheap foreign workers have all weighed down on the Malaysian economy, particularly the income levels of Malaysians.<br /><br /> Citing the examples of Singapore and Australia, which are successful in raising wages historically, Yeah says that structural reforms should be undertaken in Malaysia to reverse the low-wage conundrum.<br /><br /> A good quality and inclusive education system coupled with sound economic policies and effective implementation have enabled the two countries to sustain growth, raise productivity and wages and shift to higher-value activities"<br /> <br />Conclusion:<br /><br /> The results shown that Malaysia govt policies are attracting a lot of "cheap foreign workers", sacrificing and at the expense of high aspiring ones who endure hardship elsewhere.<br /><br /> No wonder, Malaysia remains in low income trapped for so many years, high corrupt practices in order to get high income, visible almost everyday from investigations by MACC, low productivity, low quality works, creating more problems subsequently and wasting of times and resources for everybody later......<br />righwayshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06748606380615647290noreply@blogger.com