KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 29 – A minimum wage policy is necessary if Malaysia intends to remain competitive and attain the government’s high-income goal, Westports executive chairman Tan Sri G. Gnanalingam said today.
He said Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s Vision 2020 – which is aimed at making Malaysia a developed nation by the year 2020 - will be made “meaningless” unless such a policy could be implemented.
“You don’t have a minimum, how are you going to get a high income?,” Gnanalingam told The Malaysian Insider at the “Approaching 2020: Malaysia’s Decade for Growth?” forum organised by Perdana Leadership Foundation here.
He said paying higher wages would ensure that the nation retained its talent pool and will make it more difficult for other countries to poach the Malaysia’s skilled labour.
“For the same job, how much are people paid overseas? Why do we have 900,000 Malaysians working overseas?” Gnanalingam asked pointedly.
“We import so much brawn and export so much brain.”
The proposed minimum wage policy will apply to all sectors but will vary regionally. The Najib administration is targeting next year for implementation of the policy but has faced some resistance from employers who worry it will hamper business.
Employers argue that minimum wage will only benefit low skill, low income foreign workers and propose that the government should look to increasing employee productivity and performance if it wants to push Malaysia into the high per capita income bracket.
Human Resource Minister Datuk Dr S. Subramaniam, however, countered earlier this month that the minimum wage policy was necessary as the salary structure in many sectors had not changed much over the years.
Umno Youth and Malaysian Trades Union Congress (MTUC) yesterday announced that they have joined forces to campaign for better wages for workers, which Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin considered a “moral question”.
Subramaniam is expected to table a paper on minimum wage to Cabinet by next month.
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