At least for members of the civil service, www.jpa.gov.my/pekelilinggaji.asp should be the most visited URL in Malaysia now. It contains the softcopy of 2 circulars issued on 15th June 2007 by the Public Service Department (Jabatan Perkhidmatan Awam) which describes in detail the salary increase for Federal civil servants and members of the police force.

The official circular for members of the Sabah civil service has not yet been issued, but most likely it will be almost the same, if not exactly the same, as the federal circular.

So how much more can a civil servant (not including police officers) expect to get? From the several rough calculations that I’ve made, for middle management staff (those between the grades of 41 to 48) will get between RM300 and RM800 extra per month.

Fresh graduates (degree level) joining the civil service as an Information System Officer (meaning ICT field) at grade 41 (the usual grade for first degree holders) will now get almost RM1,900 basic salary. In Sabah, on top of that, you’ll get Elaun Wilayah (calculated at 17.5% of basic salary, meaning about RM330), Housing Allowance (RM210) and Elaun Khidmat Awam (RM300). That works out to be more than RM2,700 before tax for the fresh grad. Income tax would perhaps work out to be a few hundred ringgit a year.

What do you think? Good enough to survive in this day and age?

This basic salary will increase by about RM90 per year, roughly following the inflation rate. Of course if you do well in the exams you could get more.

The RM1,900 basic is at level 1. The next year it will become RM1,990 per month and that’s called level 2. It will go up to level 25, which is RM4,715 / month, assuming you’re never promoted or get a higher salary increment for reasons stated before. The whole salary scale is a 3 x 25 matrix where the highest is layer 3 and level 25 which tops out at almost RM5,300.

If everything goes well and you get promoted to Grade 44, the level 1 of that one starts at RM3,020 and tops out at almost RM5,500.

Middle management is fully in your domain when you step up a gear to Grade 48, where salaries start at RM4,424 and tops out at RM6,432.

Deputy Directors typically are at Grade 52, and Directors are at grade 54 (the highest scale in the Sistem Saraan Malaysia salary scheme), although directors of the bigger departments can go up even higher to a whole different league i.e. the so-called Superscale grades, or JUSA, which is graded VU1 to VU7. For Sabah directors who go super, usually it’s VU7. The State Secretary typically gets a VU3 level.

VU1 is the highest scale, which is reserved for the Chief Secretary to the Government (Ketua Setiausaha Negara). Judging from the previous, publicly available, circulars that I’ve read, this guy’s salary can easily breach the RM20,000 per month mark, and then some.

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