KOTA KINABALU: A person needs a minimum income of RM3,000 a month in order to have a relatively comfortable life in Kota Kinabalu.
However, majority of the dwellers in the State capital are earning much less than this, with many deep in debts and struggling to make ends meet, according to a study.
A survey conducted by SabahToday found that more than half of the people in the City were earning below RM2,500 a month.
The study published in the Sabah Industry Quarterly (SIQ) magazine also deduced that RM2,500 was the minimum amount needed by an individual working and living in Kota Kinabalu just to break even every month, after paying their bills, loans and other basic necessities. Thus, individuals earning RM2,500 and above were more likely to have savings while those earning below that were more likely to have debt problems.
It was also found that less than one third of the population in Kota Kinabalu earned RM3,000 or more monthly.
Minister of Industrial Development, Datuk Raymond Tan, who is also founder and the brain behind SIQ, said the ‘SabahToday Cost of Living Survey’ gathered information from 250 random subjects, aged between 25 and above. Most of them were paid workers and only 16.8 per cent were self-employed.
“What we wanted to know was how much do people need to survive in KK and how much were they actually earning. The findings show that 56 per cent of young workers involved in the survey were paid below RM2,500, and if you are making only that much, you are in trouble as well.
“For the younger people with no family of their own to support and with less loans and financial commitments, it may be easier to cope. But for those aged 35 and above, RM2,500 is just not enough,” he said.
The survey also surmised that people in Kota Kinabalu spent most or 23.94 per cent of their money on food, about 16.13 per cent on car loan, 14.28 per cent on housing loan, 11.41 per cent on fuel, and 8.83 per cent to pay utility bills.
Other than these five items, six other items were considered as basic spending needs, on which the survey was based on. They are parking fees, public transportation spendings, housing rentals, education loan repayment, telecommunication bill and entertainment.
About 59.6 per cent of the subjects interviewed were under 30 years of age and only 8.4 per cent were aged 40 and above.
“The pay in KK is low, considering the amount needed to live here. The workers need at least RM2,500 to sustain themselves and not many bosses are paying that much. If you are only earning the regulated minimum wage, you would need some ‘subsidy’ and I don’t mean the government subsidy.
“I’m talking about living with your mom, using your parent’s car and getting them to fuel it up for you, going only to kopitiam and not Starbucks, things like that. The point is that salary levels in KK could use some improvement, I want to get that message out there.
“Of course, it all boils down to the lifestyle of the individuals, cutting down on spending by living a simpler, cheaper way of life would help. But then again, it is not right to make our workers work and stay in KK but live a lifestyle of somewhere else, say Kudat or other places where people could get by just fine with much less,” he said.
The challenge for the government, said Tan, was how to make living more affordable for the people through various programmes and schemes, such as providing more affordable homes.
At the same time, efforts were also being taken to continuously boost the economy, so that the businesses would be able to make more profit and hopefully be encouraged to invest more on their workers. After all, it would not be fair if the businesses were increasingly doing well but the workers driving them continued to get the same low wages, he opined.
“We need to work with the bosses and convince them to adopt certain ratio or percentage on how much of the profit they make should go to the workers. I reckon 30 per cent is sensible for a start. In other countries, like Taiwan, it’s 60 per cent,” he said.