2 days ago
- Business
- Free Malaysia Today
Median monthly wage for formal sector hits RM3,000 in Q1 2025
As of March, the formal sector workforce stood at 6.8 million, comprising 55.1% men and 44.9% women.
PUTRAJAYA : The median monthly wage for Malaysia's formal sector rose 5.5% to RM3,000 in March, up from RM2,844 a year earlier, according to the Employee Wages Statistics (Formal Sector) Report for the first quarter of 2025, released by the statistics department today.
Chief statistician Uzir Mahidin said the increase reflected the country's continued economic growth and the impact of the revised minimum wage policy, which he said had positively influenced the labour market.
In a statement, he said that as of March, the formal sector workforce stood at 6.8 million, comprising 55.1% men and 44.9% women.
The median wage for male employees remained at RM3,000, while female employees saw a 6.5% increase to RM2,982.
The highest year-on-year wage growth was recorded among workers under 20, whose median wage rose 13.3% to RM1,700, largely driven by the reimplementation of the minimum wage policy in February. However, a slight drop was observed in the number of workers aged 20 to 24.
Uzir said the mining and quarrying sector posted the highest median wage at RM8,800, although it accounted for just 0.6% of total formal employment. The agriculture sector remained the lowest, with a median wage of RM2,200.
Geographically, Kuala Lumpur recorded the highest median monthly wage at RM4,445 in March 2025, followed by Selangor at RM3,300.
At the other end of the spectrum, Sabah posted a median wage of RM2,000, while Kelantan and Perlis recorded the lowest at RM1,800.
Uzir said 27.4% of Malaysian formal sector workers earned below RM2,000 per month as of March, down 3.8 percentage points from 31.2% in the same month last year.
He said a percentile analysis revealed that workers in the bottom 10th percentile earned RM1,700 or less, while those in the top 10th percentile earned at least RM11,000 per month.
'This reflects an income gap where the top 10% earn six times more than the bottom 10%,' he said.
