KOTA KINABALU: Employers in Malaysia are urged to give their workers a pay raise so that they can keep up with the rising cost of living.
Industrial Development Minister Datuk Raymond Tan in making the call said that rising cost of living is happening globally, hence the need for wages to commensurate with escalating expenses.
“We cannot be talking about cost of living, we should be talking about improving your salary, your income. I am telling all the bosses that this must happen. We must look into how to increase the salaries.
“You cannot be saying things like the cost of everything is going up but the income is not. The income must actually be going up faster than the cost of living and that is our challenge.
“Some of the cost that we are talking about is unavoidable, there is nothing much we can do about it but what we can do is to improve the earnings, the salary of the people.
“In order to do this we must give good employment and good pay,” he said when met at the launching of TCIM Sdn Bhd’s latest series of LF (Logging and Forestry) Hydraulic Excavators yesterday.
He said this when asked to comment on the state 2015 budget which was tabled by Chief Minister cum Finance Minister Datuk Seri Musa Aman on Friday.
According to Tan, one of the areas that was emphasized by Musa was giving focus to the manufacturing sector and this is very important because the sector is going to attract the kind of investment that will create quality jobs.
“We want to make sure that we are able to basically improve and build up a bigger and stronger manufacturing sector. This will bring strong investment and in turn it will provide quality jobs.
“By providing quality jobs we are also addressing the income level of the people,” he said adding, “quality jobs means we are able to give good salary to our people here especially those who are just venturing into the job market.”
“And that is all very much connected to the manufacturing sector. If you just open up plantations and just do forestry, there is a small employment market you can create. But when you create industries like in KKIP, POIC and SOGIP, we are going to generate an area of providing good employment which is important because it will address the cost of living,” he stressed.
Tan said that he is very happy Musa is very much focused in building up the manufacturing sector.
“That is where we are weak and I think at this present time that is the direction we must take,” he said adding that Sabah’s investment has put it on the top five states in Malaysia
“We are not the bottom three. Our investment attracts all these investors to come and we can do better because we have better resources,” he said.
Tan added that Musa had also mentioned the oil and gas industry which creates quality jobs.
“You do not have to be very qualified to get these jobs, we also need a medium range of people who are trained like welders. Form Five, Form 6, you can be trained in the oil and gas industry. Your starting salary will be RM1,500 a month. It’s the skill we are going for and you can expect your salary to double within two to three years.
“If you have a diploma or degree, we need you to fill in the supervisor posts. Your starting salary will be about RM5,000. That is the kind of job opportunity that needs to be created so that people will say ‘never mind the cost of living has gone,” he said.