Of every five companies in Malaysia, one is owned by a woman

In a press release to Human Resources, Department of Statistics, Malaysia, revealed that there were 187,264 businesses owned by women in 2015, making it 20.3% of the total business companies in Malaysia. This means that on average more than 10,000 women-owned companies were opened every year from 2010 to 2015, according to its latest Report of Economic Census 2016.

Close to nine in 10 (91.4%) women entrepreneurs came from the services sector, especially in providing services directly to the households. Other business areas included retail, food stalls, beauty salons and hair dressing, kindergarten and nursery.

Industries in order: Agriculture, mining and quarrying, manufacturing, construction, and services. Pink highlights the percentage of women in each industry. 

Adding, in his speech, chief statistician Malaysia Dr. Mohd Uzir Mahidin said: “The business companies employed a total of 8.7 million workers in 2015. The improvement has a direct impact to the country in line with the number of employed persons in Malaysia to reach 14.1 million on the same year.”

In fact through the Economic Census, there were 1.8 million skilled workers recorded, out of which 23.5% reign from the private sector. This group received an average monthly salary of RM5,487 in 2015, higher than RM4,090 in 2010.

The average monthly salary of workers in 2015 were as such in the following sectors:

Private sector - RM2,585 Petroleum and natural gas sub sector - RM13,310 Agriculture sector - RM1,504

The agriculture sector registered the highest increase of average monthly salary 7.3% as compared to RM1,059 in 2010.

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