THE salary of fresh graduates will be among the topics to be discussed at a meeting next week, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said.

 Anwar said the government is set to review the salary and allowance scheme for civil servants.

He said that by convention, the salaries and allowances of civil servants are reviewed every 10 years.

“It has been 12 years now and the committee (to review the scheme) has not met.

“All this — salary of fresh graduates and salary and allowance scheme of civil servants — will be taken into account during the meeting,” he said in Penang today.

He noted that the salaries of civil servants, including the police and the armed forces, were generally low.

“All this will be taken into consideration. Depending on the economy, it will be increased in stages.”

Yesterday, Economy Minister Mohd Rafizi Ramli said the minimum wage of RM1,500 should not serve as a reference for the salary of fresh graduates.

“The concept of minimum wage is that if the minimum wage exists, then the starting wage of a degree (holder) should be higher because the minimum wage is for unskilled workers, not skilled workers.

“However, preliminary findings of wage statistics show that the minimum wage is used as the reference wage for pay, especially for fresh graduates and young, skilled workers.

“This is a phenomenon that requires an urgent policy for us to rectify the situation,” he said after the launch of the Employee Wages Statistics (Formal Sector) Report for the first quarter of 2023.

The report showed that 10.2% of the 6.45 million formal workers were paid a salary below RM1,500 in March. – August 5, 2023.