PETALING JAYA: The number of new jobs recorded in Malaysia’s official employment services portal went up last year as economic activity gathered pace after Covid-19 lockdown, but the biggest growth in new openings was for jobs that only offered salaries of RM2,000 or less.
According to the Social Security Organisation’s (Socso) Employment Insurance System (EIS) report, job vacancies recorded in the MyFutureJobs portal grew by 232.8% to 2,480,577 openings in 2021 compared to 745,304 in 2020.
The figures show that the biggest growth in 2021 was for jobs in the RM1,200-RM2,000 salary range, which made up 57.6% of the 2.48mil vacancies offered on the job portal.
In comparison, only 31% of the openings MyFutureJobs in 2020 offered the same salary range. The bulk or 60% of new jobs in 2020 fell within a higher salary range of RM2,001 to RM3,000.
In 2021, industries with the largest share of vacancies were from the manufacturing industry with 603,216 vacancies, followed by accommodation and food and beverage with 323,624 vacancies and wholesale with 249,744 vacancies.
Online employment company JobStreet Malaysia is tracking a somewhat similar trend. It said that last year saw an increase in the number of job vacancies with salaries of less than RM2,500.
"There were more than one-and-a-half times job vacancies advertised offering a salary range of RM1,000 to RM2,499 compared to the year before, with the top industries including food and beverage, catering, restaurant, manufacturing, production, retail and merchandise," said JobStreet Malaysia managing director Vic Sithasanan.
He said many of the lower paying jobs once filled by foreign workers are now vacant because foreign workers who returned to their countries face challenges getting back to Malaysia.
As a result, their employers are now offering the work to locals.
JobStreet Malaysia’s Salary Report 2022 showed that salaries decreased for several industries and specialisations including food and beverage, hotels, restaurants, building and construction, as well as sales and marketing due to the Covid-19 lockdowns and digitisation uptake.
It reported that workers in the F&B industry were the most at risk, as it recorded a 40% decrease in median salary between the first quarter and third quarter of 2021, against the same three quarters of 2020.
Companies and industries affected by this trend need to prepare to hire temporary workers, deal with a high turnover rate, or automate.
Sithasanan said Malaysian workers in the RM2,000 per month wage bracket can now earn just as much – if not more – by working as ride share drivers transporting people or delivering food orders.
More Malaysians are now also opting to work online to earn additional income or as freelancers which offers a more lucrative pay.
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“What's appealing to them is that they can work anywhere, anytime for an agreed payment, and can choose jobs that suit their skills and expertise,” he said.
He said many Malaysians have also taken the self-employed or entrepreneurship route, such as starting a small business selling food or an e-commerce venture, while others are offering services such as baby-sitting, house-cleaning and even hairdressing.
Sithasanan said employers need to consider flexible work arrangements to attract and retain local talent.
“Flexible work is one of the most coveted employees benefits an employer can now offer. It allows workers to better integrate their home and work lives and gives them the opportunity to meet their personal needs, family obligations, and other responsibilities,” he said.
Flexible work schedules, competitive wages, prioritising worker’ mental and physical health, a positive company culture and access to reskilling and upskilling programmes could also help attract local talents, he added.
“If you can’t give full flexibility, you can offer staggered schedules, especially for service and other customer-facing roles such as scheduling one employee to work from 10am to 6pm and have another come in from 12 pm to 8 pm,” he said.
Centre for Market Education CEO Dr Carmelo Ferlito said increased unemployment caused by the Covid-19 lockdowns have reduced the demand for labour and has contributed to a drop in wages for many jobs.
He said local talents who are turning to work in the sharing economy or involved in small-scale online trading will affect companies as they face shortage of workers.
"This will impact companies as there is a scarcity of labour, with a strong demand from employers to re-open the market for foreign workers.
"If instead, foreign workers are not allowed in, this may push toward higher salaries but for jobs that are undesired by local workers due to the nature of the jobs rather than by salaries alone," he said, adding that this will constitute a push toward mechanisation of the production processes where possible.
Ferlito said mass tertiary education has affected the value of graduates when they enter the job market as they possess little to no experience.
“When everybody gets a degree, then the marginal value of that degree is rapidly declining, because the degree has no information power about the skills of the candidate.
“In certain European countries, the over-supply of graduate workers brought down the salary for traditional white-collar jobs, while technically skilled people are high in demand and well paid,” he said.
To create a competitive job market, he said an education reform is needed where secondary school leavers should join the job market at an early age and tertiary education should be left for those who choose to acquire qualifications that require high level of skills.