increase font size
Malaysia’s labour productivity grew 3.6% to RM85,031 in Q4 2017 following the 4.1% growth (RM82,433) in Q3 2017.
“For the year as a whole, our labour productivity growth stood at 3.6% (RM81,039) compared to RM78,244 in 2016,’ said Minister of International Trade and Industry Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed in a statement.
“This is a continuous improvement following the growth of 3.5% in labour productivity recorded in 2016. In the period of 2010-2016, our labour productivity grew by an average of 2.2%.”
In Q4 2017, across all economic sectors, agriculture recorded the highest labour productivity growth of 4.8%, followed by mining and quarrying (4.7%), services (4.7%), manufacturing (3.6%) and construction (1.4%).
The 11th Malaysia Plan (2016-2020) has set a target of 3.7% labour productivity growth. To date, Malaysia has achieved 87.8% of the targeted level of RM92,300 labour productivity by 2020.
In the period of 2014-2017, the growth in Malaysia’s GDP has been increasingly driven by the growth in labour productivity rather than the increase in employment. On average, labour productivity grew by 3.5% while employment increased by 1.5% in the last four years.
“We could expect continuous improvement in labour productivity, especially with the implementation of the Malaysian Productivity Blueprint last year which aims to shift our approach to productivity from the primarily Government driven initiatives at the national level to targeted action across the public sector, industry players and individual enterprises.”
Six priority initiatives are being implemented under the five strategic thrusts at the national level. The thrusts include: building a workforce of the future which meet changing needs across the sectors; driving digitalisation and innovation through the adoption of innovative technology; making industries accountable for productivity through productivity metrics and outcome, forging a robust ecosystem that addresses regulatory constraints; and securing a strong implementation mechanism that will inculcate a stronger culture of productivity throughout the economy.
In the last five years, a total of RM6.1 billion of compliance cost savings has been achieved through various improvement programmes such as Reducing Unnecessary Regulatory Burden (RM3 billion) and process innovation projects such as Lean Management (RM3.1 billion).
