How does immigration affect wages and the unemployment rate in Malaysia? a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) approach

Malaysia had approximately 2 million migrants in 2018, and this number was increasing dramatically by 25 percent in 2019. Parallels with the aims of country policy to reduce migrant workers' dependency in 2020, managing the workers needs to be clarified. At the same time, the country still need...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Said, Rusmawati, Abdul Hamid, Kamarul Hidayah, Mazlan, Nur Syazwani
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Canadian Center of Science and Education 2020
Online Access:http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/89211/1/RATE.pdf
_version_ 1825936641676541952
author Said, Rusmawati
Abdul Hamid, Kamarul Hidayah
Mazlan, Nur Syazwani
author_facet Said, Rusmawati
Abdul Hamid, Kamarul Hidayah
Mazlan, Nur Syazwani
author_sort Said, Rusmawati
collection UPM
description Malaysia had approximately 2 million migrants in 2018, and this number was increasing dramatically by 25 percent in 2019. Parallels with the aims of country policy to reduce migrant workers' dependency in 2020, managing the workers needs to be clarified. At the same time, the country still needs to keep them for specific sectors. These issues motivate us to analyze the migrant worker's requirements at different levels of skills and wages. Using Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) modeling, at four-level nested CES production function, this study found high skilled migrants will harm wages for the high skilled and skilled groups while the opposite effect was observed for the semiskilled and low-skilled groups. However, when the migrant stock increases slightly below 1 percent, it will reduce the wages for semiskilled workers due to substitution effects. This study also found that the influx of low-skilled migrant workers will reduce salaries for semiskilled and low-skilled workers. The analysis also indicates that a small rise in high skilled immigrant labour will reduce the unemployment rate; likewise, increasing more than 4 percent will increase the unemployment rate. The results provide the policymaker guidelines to employ foreign workers' best skills to control the inequality of wages among skilled and low-skilled workers.
first_indexed 2024-03-06T10:47:23Z
format Article
id upm.eprints-89211
institution Universiti Putra Malaysia
language English
last_indexed 2024-03-06T10:47:23Z
publishDate 2020
publisher Canadian Center of Science and Education
record_format dspace
spelling upm.eprints-892112021-09-20T23:13:59Z http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/89211/ How does immigration affect wages and the unemployment rate in Malaysia? a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) approach Said, Rusmawati Abdul Hamid, Kamarul Hidayah Mazlan, Nur Syazwani Malaysia had approximately 2 million migrants in 2018, and this number was increasing dramatically by 25 percent in 2019. Parallels with the aims of country policy to reduce migrant workers' dependency in 2020, managing the workers needs to be clarified. At the same time, the country still needs to keep them for specific sectors. These issues motivate us to analyze the migrant worker's requirements at different levels of skills and wages. Using Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) modeling, at four-level nested CES production function, this study found high skilled migrants will harm wages for the high skilled and skilled groups while the opposite effect was observed for the semiskilled and low-skilled groups. However, when the migrant stock increases slightly below 1 percent, it will reduce the wages for semiskilled workers due to substitution effects. This study also found that the influx of low-skilled migrant workers will reduce salaries for semiskilled and low-skilled workers. The analysis also indicates that a small rise in high skilled immigrant labour will reduce the unemployment rate; likewise, increasing more than 4 percent will increase the unemployment rate. The results provide the policymaker guidelines to employ foreign workers' best skills to control the inequality of wages among skilled and low-skilled workers. Canadian Center of Science and Education 2020 Article PeerReviewed text en http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/89211/1/RATE.pdf Said, Rusmawati and Abdul Hamid, Kamarul Hidayah and Mazlan, Nur Syazwani (2020) How does immigration affect wages and the unemployment rate in Malaysia? a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) approach. Asian Social Science, 16 (11). 100 - 114. ISSN 1911-2017; ESSN: 1911-2025 https://www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/ass/article/view/0/44084 10.5539/ass.v16n11p100
spellingShingle Said, Rusmawati
Abdul Hamid, Kamarul Hidayah
Mazlan, Nur Syazwani
How does immigration affect wages and the unemployment rate in Malaysia? a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) approach
title How does immigration affect wages and the unemployment rate in Malaysia? a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) approach
title_full How does immigration affect wages and the unemployment rate in Malaysia? a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) approach
title_fullStr How does immigration affect wages and the unemployment rate in Malaysia? a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) approach
title_full_unstemmed How does immigration affect wages and the unemployment rate in Malaysia? a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) approach
title_short How does immigration affect wages and the unemployment rate in Malaysia? a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) approach
title_sort how does immigration affect wages and the unemployment rate in malaysia a computable general equilibrium cge approach
url http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/89211/1/RATE.pdf
work_keys_str_mv AT saidrusmawati howdoesimmigrationaffectwagesandtheunemploymentrateinmalaysiaacomputablegeneralequilibriumcgeapproach
AT abdulhamidkamarulhidayah howdoesimmigrationaffectwagesandtheunemploymentrateinmalaysiaacomputablegeneralequilibriumcgeapproach
AT mazlannursyazwani howdoesimmigrationaffectwagesandtheunemploymentrateinmalaysiaacomputablegeneralequilibriumcgeapproach