Chief Statistician Uzir Mahidin said in comparison with the preceding month, the sales value returned to record a positive growth of 7.6% after registering a continuous decline since December 2022.
“The sales value of export-oriented industries, which contributed more than two-thirds or 71.7% of total sales, rose 7.3% in March 2023 after registering 9.9% growth in February 2023,” he said in a statement today.
He said the increment was mainly attributable to the strong growth registered in the manufacture of computers, electronics and optical products (14.1% y-o-y) and manufacture of coke and refined petroleum products (12.7% y-o-y).
Uzir said similarly, domestic-oriented industries posted a steady growth of 9.9% versus 11.3% in February underpinned by the growth in manufacture of motor vehicles, trailers and semi-trailers (18.6% y-o-y) and manufacture of food processing products (9.9% y-o-y).
He said 2.35 million persons were engaged in the manufacturing sector in March, an increase of 2.8% from 2.29 million persons registered a year ago mainly contributed by the food, beverages and tobacco products; electrical and electronic products; and wood, furniture, paper products and printing sub-sectors.
“The number of persons engaged in these three sub-sectors encompasses more than half of the total in the manufacturing sector,” he said.
He said the number of employees grew slightly by 0.1% compared with the preceding month.
Meanwhile, he said salaries and wages paid in the manufacturing sector went up by 4.2% y-o-y, which amounted to RM8.17 billion in March, in line with the increase in the number of employees.
He said the salaries and wages increased marginally by 0.1% against the previous month.
Additionally, he said the average monthly salaries and wages per employee posted an increase of 1.3% compared with RM3,475 a year ago while the sales value per employee rose by 5.1% to record RM66,430.
On quarterly performance, Uzir said the sales value of the manufacturing sector rose 8.2% to RM449.4 billion in the first quarter of 2023 from the same quarter in 2022 contributed by electrical and electronics products; petroleum, chemical, rubber and plastics products; and food, beverages and tobacco products sub-sectors.
“The number of employees added 2.8% to record a total of 2.35 million persons with salaries and wages growing by 4.3% to RM24.5 billion,” he said.
He said sales value per employee for the first quarter registered a growth of 5.3%, amounting to RM191,141.
Meanwhile, Uzir said DoSM is conducting the economic census this year and has launched OpenDOSM NextGen, an open-source data-sharing platform.
More information about the census can be found on the DoSM website at www.dosm.gov.my.