PARLIAMENT | Pakatan Harapan's plan to set a high minimum wage of RM1,500 per month is not feasible, warned Deputy Human Resources Minister Ismail Abd Muttalib.

A high minimum wage, Ismail claimed, would cause closures of factories due to increasing costs, which would then lead to unemployment that would ultimately impact the country.

The government would only accept an appropriate minimum wage that would not burden any parties, he added.

"The BN government is a caring and loving government. If we want to impose a high minimum wage, we could have proposed it. If we could afford it, why not set our minimum wage at RM3,000 (per month)?

"We are using tripartite consultation as our standard operating procedure, where employees, employers and the government will discuss the matter, so it would not burden any party.

"The opposition want minimum wage set at RM1,500, and some even said set at RM1,700. They are inconsistent," he said. 

Ismail was responding to Hasbullah Osman (BN-Gerik), who asked about the impact of setting a high minimum wage, in light of the RM1,500 proposed by Haparan in its shadow budget.

Elaborating further, he said the minimum wage, which was introduced in 2012 and enforced in July 2016, would be reviewed every two years, and that the government would review the current level next year.

"We will be able to set a higher minimum wage upon further research by the Minimum Wages Technical Committee and National Wage Consultative Council," he added.

At present, Ismail explained, the government only set different minimum wages according to region, namely one wage for Peninsular Malaysia, and another for East Malaysia.

Different minimum wages according to rural and urban areas could not be imposed, he added, as that would cause mass migration to towns.