Sarawak Federation of Chinese Associations (SFCA) President, Dato Richard Wee Liang Huat calls for both said both sides to work towards a win- win situation on Budget minimum wages

suppadmin | October 21, 2024

MySarawak Federation of Chinese Associations (SFCA) President, Dato Richard Wee Liang Huat feels that there are always two sides to a coin concerning Budget minimum wages.

“As I have mentioned during the Budget Talk, it depends on which angle one is looking from. From the point of view of the employer, it will definitely increase the cost of business operation as the minimum wage will push the overall cost higher as it pushes up the subsequent tiers of the salary scales.
From the employee view point, it will allow the employees to have higher disposable income to cover the higher cost of goods experienced in the last few years. There is no right or wrong. But the important issues are how do we mitigate the cost of operations and how do we deal with the continuing high cost of living”, he said.

Wee stated that for the employer, they must accept that salary and wages will continue to escalate, therefore the employers must have their mechanism to increase productivity, adopt automation and have more efficient processes. That way, if there is natural attrition in the company,there will be less need to recruit replacements. Employers must continue to provide training and upskilling for employees to further increase productivity.

With all that, Wee advised that the government must have policies to encourage companies to invest in all these i. e, automation, adopt efficient process systems and in house training and upskilling. The Government must allow all these investments to be tax deductible, even double deduction to provide such encouragement for companies to reinvest in more efficient and cost effectiveness of the operation of the company.

He believed that with the setting of the minimum wages, the employees must have the mindset to be willing to accept such training so that they can be more productive and efficient.

On mitigating the high cost of living and cost of goods, Wee said the government must have a strong and determined fiscal policy to maintain our currency value. “If our currency is stable and the government is able to improve the exchange rates against the other currencies, then the cost of goods imported will be relatively cheaper allowing the Rakyat to have higher disposable income and stronger purchasing power. Also, it can have a longer effect of not losing our workers to the neighbouring countries, “he added.