Malaysia's services sector revenue for 2022 exceeds pre-pandemic value by 13.7%

The number of employees as well as annual salaries and wages in this sector also exceeded the 2019 amount by 2.3% and 2.9% respectively.

In the recent Budget Dialogue session, Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim said the government will focusing on the services sector including green technology, digital economy, and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the upcoming 2023 Budget, as cited by New Straits Times.

This will likely bode well for the services sector as it recorded an increase in revenue by 14.9% in Q4 2022 (as compared to Q4 2021) to land at RM 528.8bn. The majority of the increment was led by the Wholesale & Retail Trade, Food & Beverages, and Accommodation segment, which saw revenue increase +RM55.6bn; 15.0%, as well as an improvement in salaries & wages by 5.3%.

This data comes from the Quarterly Services Statistics, Fourth Quarter 2022 publication by Department of Statistics, Malaysia (DOSM).

The following segments make up the Services sector (in descending order of contribution to revenue growth):

• Wholesale & Retail Trade, Food & Beverages, and Accommodation segment - revenue 425.8bn, employing ~2.8mn persons,
• Information & Communication, and Transportation & Storage segment - revenue 75.8bn, employing ~498,000 persons,
• Private Health, Private Education, and Arts, Entertainment & Recreation segment - revenue 16.4bn, employing ~279,000 persons,
• Professional and Real Estate Agent segment - revenue 10.9bn, employing ~180,000 persons.

Overall, total revenue on a quarterly basis registered a growth of 2.2% or +RM11.3bn. More details about segment-wise performance are in the infographic above.

The services sector employs 3.8mn persons as of Q4 2022, an increase of 111.4 thousand persons or 3% against Q4 2021. For quarterly comparison (i.e. with Q3 2022), number of persons engaged went up 0.6% or 21.4 thousand persons.

Salaries and wages paid to services sector employees in Q4 2022 posted a growth of 5.9% to reach RM26.4bn compared to Q4 2021. Compared with Q3 2022, salaries and wages paid increased 1.1%.

For the whole year (2022), Malaysia's services sector has recorded revenue of RM2tn, an increase of 20.3% compared to the 2.8% growth in 2021. Compared to 2019 (pre-pandemic COVID-19) comparison, the services sector revenue 2022 has exceeded by 13.7% (+RM244bn).

The number of employees as well as annual salaries and wages in this sector also exceeded the amount in 2019 by 2.3% (+32,284 persons) and 2.9% (+RM2.9bn) respectively.

Photo / DOSM