A labour market intervention step should be implemented by focusing on middle-income workers, who are being squeezed, as reported by the Finance Ministry in the Economic Outlook 2024, said Human Resources Minister V Sivakumar.
He said that currently, data shows that semi-skilled workers receive almost the same salary as low-skilled workers.
“Based on the Statistics and Wages Malaysia 2022 report, the median monthly wage for semi-skilled workers is RM1,817, compared with RM1,635 received by low-skilled workers,” he said.
Sivakumar said this during a winding-up debate on the Supply Bill 2024 for the Human Resources Ministry at the policy level in the Dewan Rakyat today.
He also said that the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM) report last year showed that the composition of semi-skilled workers was the highest at 58 percent, while 30 percent were skilled workers and the remaining 12 percent were low-skilled workers, out of a total of 15.4 million workers.
Regarding the minimum wage, Sivakumar said the review of the minimum wage order is now 70 percent complete.
It took into account socioeconomic indicators such as the poverty line income, the median wage which reflects the employer's ability to pay wages, unemployment rate, labour productivity and the change in the consumer price index which reflects the cost of living.
The study, conducted by the National Wages Consultative Council (MPGN), is important in ensuring that the adjustment of the minimum wage order made is an evidence-based policy, he added.
Sivakumar said that looking at the data released by DOSM in 2022, the salaried income of the people increased to 62.8 percent, due to the increase in the minimum wage in that year.
In addition, he said the progressive wage policy will also be implemented as complementary to the Minimum Wage Policy and the Productivity-Linked Wage System (PLWS), which ensures that any wage increase is in line with increased productivity or higher performance.
“As of September 2023, a total of 98,119 employers have implemented PLWS and benefited 5.9 million workers in various job levels, including semi-skilled workers,” he said.
Meanwhile, Sivakumar said that his ministry, through the Human Resource Development Corporation (HRD Corp), is committed to encouraging employees to continue to improve their knowledge base, through skills training based on Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) programmes.
He also said that until Sept 30, a total of 258,862 training venues were approved to carry out training, involving allocations amounting to RM124.04 million.
“Apart from that, HRD Corp also offers online learning, through the e-Latih platform. As of Sept 30, a total of 1,900 courses were offered for free, involving 350,000 registrations.”
‘More nurses needed’
Meanwhile, Health Minister Dr Zaliha Mustafa, when winding up the debate for her ministry, said that the Health Ministry is working with the Higher Education Ministry to lift the moratorium on the opening of new private nursing colleges.
She said the move was among efforts to increase the number of local nurses and human resources at health facilities, thus overcoming the issue of shortage of health workers.
“Nurses at public health facilities are mostly graduates from ILKKM (Health Ministry’s training institute), and absorbed directly into the ministry...we are also looking in the future, to get human resources (nurses) from both public and private institutions of higher learning.
“Other efforts include increasing the number of ministry-sponsored nursing diploma trainees from 1,000 to 2,000 every year,” she said.
In addition, she said that her ministry is also open to examining proposals to offer job opportunities to retired former nurses and health experts, to return to serve in public health facilities.
On the issue of hiring foreign-trained nurses (JTWA) without a post-basic qualification by private health facilities, Zaliha said that her ministry agreed to give conditional relaxation, which is the recruitment of JTWA for 12 months, from Oct 1 to Sept 30, 2024.
Their service can be extended for up to 12 more months, based on approvals by the JWTA Temporary Practising Certificate (TPC).
She said that the move was to help increase capacity and optimise private health services, thus supporting public-private collaboration in the country's health sector.
- Bernama
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.