PETALING JAYA: Unionists and Malaysian employers have challenged online jobs site’s relatively rosy picture of wages and employment in the country.
Solomon said salaries had stagnated. He forecast a slow increase in employment from new mega projects by the government. However Shamsuddin said employers were cautious about adding workers and staff, pointing out a jobs freeze in the public sector and retrenchments of more than 10,000 private sector workers this year.Solomon said two studies had shown that wages were stagnant.
He said: “Prior to the global financial crisis of 2009, job vacancies for low-skilled jobs were less than 50%. In 2005, elementary occupations and operators constituted 30.9% and 15.4% of job vacancies respectively. High-skilled jobs such as senior officials, professionals and technicians were at 19.8% in 2005 against 4.2% in 2018.
However Shamsuddin disagreed with the Jobstore forecast. “Generally will not be hiring more. Instead, many employers have been retrenching. Up to March 19, about 10,200 employees have already been retrenched.”