Shrinking “Salariat” and Growing “Precariat”? Estimating Informal and Non-standard Employment in Malaysia
Using administrative data, the estimated share of informal employment (i.e. workers without social protection) is found to be four times the share of informal sector workers (i.e. workers working with unregistered firms). Despite the recent decline, the share of workers in informal employment has remained flat. Besides that, new forms of non-standard employment (workers without full-time jobs) are emerging in tandem with the rise of “sharing” or “gig” economy. Higher growth of non-standard employment especially among urban, female, tertiary-educated and services and sales workers may indicate a rising hiring preference for temporary or contract-for-service workers even for jobs that typically offer standard full-time employment. Rapid informalisation of jobs and encroachment of non-standard jobs on traditional full-time jobs, if left uncheck, could pose a challenge to the Malaysian social protection system as many schemes for workers are typically built around standard employment relationships.
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