Modest pay hikes for Malaysian employees in 2015

Wages are only set to rise by an incremental amount in 2015, further corroborating reports that Malaysia's economy is rewarding shareholders better than workers.

The Malaysian Employers Federation (MEF) has forecast slight salary increments for employees in 2015, at less than 0.5% over the actual pay rises given out in 2014.

This past year saw average salary increase of 5.53% for executives, and 5.43% for non-executives. According to MEF estimates, salary increments in 2015 are expected at 5.89% for executives, and at 5.78% for non-executives.

The bonus forecast presented a similar picture, with the average bonus for executives in 2015 pegged at 2.19 months of salary - slightly lower than the 2.2 months of actual bonus granted in 2014.

The MEF also pointed to a gap in the skills of newly-recruited executives. More than half of the companies surveyed found their new recruits lacking in leadership skills, followed by job-specific skills (58.2%), and English oral communication skills (55%).

A similar skill gap was observed in newly-recruited non-executives, where respondents quoted a lack of technical skills (56.6%),  followed by English oral communication (53%), and job specific-skills (53%).

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The study finds that almost half of the participating companies (49.5% for executives, 48.4% for non-executives) will take into account the implementation of the Goods & Services Tax (GST) come April 1st 2015.

This upcoming GST implementation is therefore being factored in by companies while determining their pay rise estimates.

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