Environmental Scan 2017: Human Capital Issues within the Medical Devices Sector
C. Industry Workforce Profile and Outlook
The MedDev sector in Malaysia is estimated to engage around 65,800 full time employees
and 6,400 outsourced production workers (i.e. workers that are not under the company’s
payroll and are directly involved in production). The hiring of part-time employees is
uncommon in the industry. (See Appendix 3.1 for further information)
Demographic of the Industry Workforce
The surgical/medical gloves segment is estimated to employ around 40,000 employees, while
other medical consumables segment hire around 17,300 employees and the non-
consumables segment have around 8,500 employees.
Companies in the surgical/medical gloves segment and non-consumables segment engage
more male employees than female, whereas those in the other medical consumables
segment have a higher tendency of hiring females. Around 70% of the employees in the
MedDev industry are below 35 years old, which indicates a low risk of ageing workforce in the
industry. Majority of the employees in MedDev industry are Malaysians. Foreign workers are
employed to fill up 40% of the job positions in the surgical/medical gloves segment, 9% in
other medical consumables segment and 17% in the non-consumables segment. Such job
positions usually require low to no specific technical skills and high attrition rates are typically
experienced among Malaysian workers. The engagement of expatriates/PRs is less prominent
across the industry.
Within the surgical/medical gloves segment, more than half of the full time jobs are for job
category stationary plant and machine operators, followed by science and engineering
associate professionals 23% and assemblers 10% (see Figure C-1 for more details). The
workforce in other medical consumables segment is mainly made up of semi- / low skilled
workers, with 25% of the full time employees working as stationary plant and machine
operators, 25% as assemblers and 21% as manufacturing and transport labourers (see Figure
C-2 for more details). In the non-consumables segment, 21% of the full time employees are
assemblers, followed by stationary plant and machine operators 19% and science and
engineering associate professionals 14% (see Figure C-3 for more details). The non-
consumables segment tends to hire more skilled workers (39%) as compared to the other two
medical consumables segments (21%-27%).
17% of the surgical/medical gloves manufacturers, 29% of other medical consumables
companies and 34% of non-consumables companies utilised outsourced workers to fulfil their
production needs. The use of outsourced workers is mainly for positions as plant and machine
operators or assemblers, where high attrition rates are experienced in the industry. More
than half of these outsourced production workers are non-Malaysians. The hiring of
outsourced production worker is directly correlated with the revenue size of the company,
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