“Malaysia’s businesses have seen a year of extended growth over the last 12 months, with three in five (62 %) of companies reporting increased business activity in 2018, ” said Hays, an international recruitment firm today.
It said 72 % of respondents predicted a continuation of heightened business activity in 2019, and as a result, nearly half (49 %) of them foresee an increase in permanent staff levels.
Nearly half of Malaysian employers (48 %), which is 10% more than the Asia-wide average, expect that their staff’salaries are likely to increase by above 3% but less than or equal to 6% in 2019.
Employees in Malaysia expect more generous salary increments compared with their counterparts across Asia.
More than half (55 %) of employees interviewed stated they were “satisfied” with their current remuneration packages, a marked improvement from the 38 % the previous year.
However, only 4% of respondents claimed to be “very satisfied”.
“It is clear that while positivity surrounding salaries is up, there is still room for improvement,” said Tom Osborne, managing director of Hays Malaysia.
“With more and more employees leaving, mostly due to the allure of better salary or benefit packages, companies looking to retain valuable employees should work on improving satisfaction rates where remuneration is concerned,” he said.
The number of companies guaranteeing bonuses to their staff declined marginally from 65% to 63%.
Concurrently, there was also a decline (93 % in 2018 vs 87 % in 2019) in the number of employers giving benefits in addition to financial incentives, but, according to Hays, the figure still remains high.
The most common forms of additional benefits were health and medical provisions (84 %), car/car allowance (51 %) and life assurance (40 %).
Employers remain concerned that skills deficit may affect the running of their businesses.
Almost all (94 %) of those interviewed expect a shortage of required talent to hamper the effective operation of businesses in 2019, and about seven in 10 (71 %) of employers confirmed that productivity has been negatively impacted in the past year.
Confidence among employers in the ability to recruit talents to meet organisational needs in 2019 is on the downtrend, with 50 % “confident” and 5% “very confident”, down from 59% and 6% respectively in 2018.
Most Malaysian employers have stated that the most sought-after skills are hard skills over soft skills (60 % vs 40 %).
Among the most sought after skills are statistical analysis and data mining, project management, and computer skills.
As for soft skills, problem solving, teamwork, and critical thinking abilities are most in demand, with a majority of employers placing high importance in these psychological competencies.