SYED Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman, now youth and sports minister, was once featured in a video that went viral during the 14th general election campaign last year.
The clip was mainly about the working life of his father, Syed Abdul Rahman Abdullah Al-Sagoff, in Singapore.
Syed Abdul Rahman, who lives in Johor Baru, had to wake up at 4.30am and returned home around 10pm or 11pm, depending on the Causeway traffic.
Jobs are central to one’s identity and Malaysia needs a new framing, understanding and more empathy.
Clichés about jobs, wages and the economy need some refinement, or perhaps a serious change of approach.
The first cliché is that those who work overseas are top professionals who will be enticed to return through the “brain gain” programme ala Talent Corp.
In reality, it is extremely costly to match the top-tier earners such as those earning S$20,000 a month.
But to match a S$2,000-a-month job is not far-fetched. While S$2,000 is worth about RM6,000 now, many Malaysians are more than happy to settle for two-thirds of that amount if they can get better quality of life by not having to work in Singapore.
Employment at this level of pay can be created by automating jobs that are currently hiring several labourers.
For instance, an automated skilled job may reduce the work of five persons to one person as it is a five-time productivity gain while the new pay is probably just double that of the previous labour cost.
The second cliché is that wages can only rise when productivity increases in tandem.
In reality, a street sweeper can only do extra manual work by increasing his or her hours of work, which is actually a decrease of per hour productivity.
Productivity can improve tremendously if a machine is introduced. Progress should mean less unskilled labour is used in our economy.
The third cliché is that Malaysians do not like to take up 3D — dirty, dangerous, difficult — jobs. This is a myth because Malaysians do take up 3D jobs if the pay is fair and adequate.
Some 40 per cent of Malaysians who work in Singapore are in the 3D category. They are happy to return home to work if they are paid a monthly salary of RM4,000 and above.
But the problem at home is that the jobs that Malaysians are qualified for pay less than RM1,500 a month due to a huge population of unskilled foreign labour that has kept wages stagnant for the past two decades.
Worse, if our graduates are paid between RM1,500 and RM2,500 a month, labourers are unlikely to be paid higher.
Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Minister Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail told a discussion recently that his pay for his first job as an estate manager was RM1,680 a month. That was 32 years ago!
Deputy Economic Affairs Minister, Dr Radzi Jidin, who graduated from Australia as an accountant, was paid around RM2,000 a month. It was 20 years ago.
If we can increase pay for labourers, the salary for seemingly middle-class jobs would have to increase too.
Then there will be a virtuous cycle. Otherwise, graduates would choose to become labourers. If we fail to deal with the job and pay challenge, we will have a political crisis to face with at some point.
We are already seeing signs of such strains. Unfortunately, the debate about cost of living is still dominating the minds of political leaders and the public.
If you look at the statistics, the inflation rate was at 1.0 per cent in 2018 (3.7 per cent in 2017) and it was surprisingly negative 0.7 per cent (year on year) in January 2019.
Yet no one seems to feel the benefits of low inflation and even a technical deflation. The reason is simple. It’s not the cost of living which is high, it is the low pay!
Coupled with a decade of high household debts, it means that we have a very low disposable income to spare with.
A very large part of the Malaysian economy since the global financial crisis in 2008 has been sustained through debt-fuelled domestic consumption.
The model is being stretched. If nothing is done to the job and pay question, domestic consumption will be further curtailed.
It is in the interest of business owners of this country to see higher pay for everyone as a national imperative to keep the economy going.
As a nation, the situation of permanent low pay will result in two possible scenarios. First, a political dissent such as voting for Pakatan Harapan last year, and continuing to complain about the high cost of living we are experiencing now. This is a real economic time bomb.
Second, the exodus of an able workforce who can contribute so much yet their human potential is not realised here nor in the countries they are working in, as they usually work at under-qualified jobs such as picking fruits in Australia or New Zealand or as labourers in South Korea.
It is time for us to change the framing, and focus on job and wages.
Liew Chin Tong is the deputy defence minister