Its president, Effendy Abdul Ghani, said some companies were still not abiding by the new minimum wage even though the criteria that had been set by the government was clear.

“We are still receiving complaints on issues relating to the implementation of the new minimum wage,” he said in a statement.

He said the congress also received complaints of employers making cuts from their workers’ fixed allowance and adding it to the monthly basic salary in order to meet the RM1,500 mark.

“This is a clear violation of workers’ rights, and action from the human resources ministry is needed,” he said.

Human resources minister M Saravanan told the Dewan Rakyat yesterday that no employers had been charged for failing to abide by the new minimum wage of RM1,500 a month since it was implemented on May 1.

He said this was because the salaries for May were only received by most employees in early June.

Effendy, however, thanked Saravanan for advising employers to comply with the new minimum wage.

He had also praised Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob yesterday for highlighting statistics by MyFutureJob, which said that most job vacancies in the country were only offering salaries between RM1,200 and RM2,000 per month.

Earlier today, the Malaysian Employers Federation (MEF) said that most companies had taken steps to comply with the minimum wage rule despite the challenges that businesses faced in the post-Covid environment.

However, MEF president Syed Hussain Syed Husman said some had just not been able to do so yet.

The new minimum wage of RM1,500 came into effect on May 1, a bump up from the previous rate of RM1,200 per month. It only applies to companies in the private sector with five or more employees.