Malaysian employees will likely receive a median 4.5% pay rise next year, according to Mercer's 2021 Total Remuneration Survey.

The annual survey involved 544 organizations with 97% of them consisted of multinational companies (MNCs) across 10 industries in Malaysia between April and June this year. According to Mercer, excluding companies that implemented wage freezes, next year's  increase of 0.4% better than this year (4.1%) although still lower than the 5% recorded back in 2019. 

While Malaysia’s median wage increase is still below the Asia Pacific average of 5.4%, it promises confidence in the country’s economic recovery, with Gross Domestic Product (GDP) estimated to grow by 4.5 this year%, returning close to pre-pandemic levels of 4.4% in 2019.

In terms of benefits, employers in Malaysia are also increasing payments on average to 2.2 months for 2021, compared to 2.1 months in 2020, with the life sciences and shared services industry seeing the highest payments of 2.4 months.

Let's hope this is a good sign towards implementing the well-deserving rise in minimum wage in Malaysia. It's about time.