Higher salaries for private sector in 2011

PETALING JAYA: Employees in the private sector are expected to receive higher wages next year -- a clear indication that the Malaysian economy is healthy and well on the road to recovery, says the Malaysian Employers Federation (MEF).

Its President Datuk Azman Shah Haron said a survey conducted by the federation found that wages for executives was forecasted to increase by 5.79 per cent in 2011 compared with a 5.67 per cent increase this year.

The survey found that 80.8 per cent of respondent companies granted salary increase to all its executives this year which was also higher than the 5.26 per cent increase last year.

For non-executives, 80.3 per cent of the respondent companies granted salary increase in 2010 which was also higher than in 2009.

This trend of salary increase is consistent with Malaysia's strong economic recovery, Azman said at a media briefing on the "2010 MEF Salary Survey for Executives and Non-Executives" here today.

Apart from the Salary Survey, MEF also produced six new publications including the MEF Compensation and Benefits Survey for Sales/Marketing Personnel, MEF Fringe Benefits Survey 2010, MEF Survey on Man-Days Loss, Analysis of Collective Agreements and Awards on Terms and Conditions of Employment 2009 and MEF Survey on Implementation of Productivity/Performance Linked Wage System.

Azman said the survey results also disproved the World Bank report which stated that real wages in Malaysia from the year 1994 to 2007, only increased by 2.6 per cent.

"According to MEF's survey, total wages had increased by 97.10 per cent for executives and 91.21 per cent for non-executives from 1994 to 2007.

"After factoring the Consumer Price Index which increased by 37.3 per cent during the same period, the actual wage increases were in fact 59.8 per cent for executives and 53.9 per cent for non-executives," he said.

If the wage increases are extended to 2010, the total wage increases from 1994 to 2010 will amount to 114.23 per cent for executives and 107.4 per cent for non-executives.

Therefore, with Consumer Price Index recorded to increase by 44.8 per cent from 1994 to 2010, based on the yearly MEF survey on wages the actual increase in wages from 1994 to 2010 will be 69.43 per cent and 62.6 per cent for executives and non-executives respectively, Azman added.

This proves that the World Bank's report of real wages increase of only 2.6 per cent from 1994 to 2007 is untrue.

Only the World Bank knows how this was derived at, as their method of calculation was not revealed, he added.

The survey also revealed that 86.1 per cent of the respondent companies granted bonus to their executives in 2010 while 83.7 per cent provided bonus to non-executives, which was higher than the 80 per cent in 2009.

On MEF's survey on Man-Days Loss, he said 94.6 per cent of companies surveyed indicated that the most common reason for man-days loss was due to sick leave, other causes included lateness (56.8 per cent), visits to clinic/hospital (50 per cent), industrial accident leave (35.1 per cent), prolonged illness (32.4 per cent).

Other reasons were personal/family problems (28.4 per cent) and application leave not approved (16.2 per cent) and the average number of man-days loss due to sick leave (non-hospitalisation) in 2009 was 4.04 days per employee.

Based on the 5.5 million formal employees in the private sector in Malaysia, the total number of man-days loss due to sick leave (non-hospitalisation) was 22.2 million days per year, he said.

The survey also indicated that the average wage paid for each employee who took an average of 4.04 days sick leave was RM294.62 per year while the medical expenses spent per employee was RM511.09 per year and the average overtime paid to each employee who covers those on sick leave was RM441 per year, he said.

The MEF survey covered 35,661 employees and there were an average 268.56 work days available to each employee in a year.

The MEF survey for executives was participated by 220 member companies, involving a total of 101 benchmark positions covering 11,287 executives.

In the survey for non-executives, responses were collected from 40,424 non-executives in 87 benchmark positions from both manufacturing and non-manufacturing sectors. --