SINGAPORE: In March 2024, Liew Chin Tong, Malaysia’s Deputy Investment, Trade, and Industry Minister, addressed a “brain drain” issue in the country’s Parliament. Speaking specifically of engineers, Mr Liew argued that if local companies gave them higher wages, they would not seek employment in other countries.
Even a fraction of what they’re paid in Singapore would be enough to keep them home, The Star quoted Mr Liew as saying on March 26, 2024.
“For those who went to Singapore, if they were offered two-thirds of Singaporean salaries, they would rather stay in Malaysia,” said the minister, who is also the MP for Iskandar Puteri and who served as the State Leader of the Opposition in Johor in 2022.
He also delivered a message to companies, telling them that with competition intensifying and more firms choosing to set up shop in Malaysia, they should pay workers better salaries.
Mr Liew had said this in answer to an MP who pointed out that Malaysia’s electrical and electronics products (E&E) sector needed 50,000 engineers at the time. However, there were just 5,000 local engineers in the workforce. The MP, Tampin’s Mohd Isam, had said that some engineers had chosen to work in Singapore because the wages were higher.
Mr Liew has repeated his remarks more recently. The New Paper quotes him as saying on Jan 16 (Thursday) that if Malaysian firms offered salaries “equivalent to two-thirds of what they earn in Singapore, many Malaysians would choose to return and work here”.
It also said the minister had noted that Malaysia’s problem is not a “lack of talent” but a “wage issue” instead.
In February 2024, a study released by the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM) and the Ministry of Economy highlighted the country’s brain drain to greener pastures with better pay, specifically Singapore and Brunei.
Nearly two in five Malaysians (39 per cent) in Singapore are skilled workers, and almost as many (35 per cent) are semi-skilled workers.
The figures are from a 2022 study called “Social Security Protection for Malaysian Citizens Working Abroad: Singapore” and the Malaysian Diaspora Study in Brunei in 2023.
“For monthly gross salary, it was found that 66.7 per cent of respondents working in Singapore receive salaries ranging from S$1,500 to S$3,599, and 18.5 per cent get salaries between S$3,600 and S$9,999,” noted Chief Statistician Datuk Seri Mohd Uzir Mahidin. /TISG