A lorry driver and an office coordinator work for the same Malaysian company. The driver earns RM6,000 a month, the coordinator RM4,100. Ask which of them keeps a statutory right to overtime pay and the intuitive answer is the lower-paid one.
On the face of the Employment Act's First Schedule, it is the driver.
What the schedule says now
The First Schedule decides who the Act covers and which provisions drop away. After the 2022 amendment it reads, in outline:
| Paragraph | Who it covers | Provisions disapplied |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | "Any person who has entered into a contract of service" — no wage limit | blank |
| 1A | "Notwithstanding paragraph 1", those earning above RM4,000 | s60(3), s60A(3), s60C(2A), s60D(3), s60D(4), s60J |
| 2 | "Any person who, irrespective of the amount of wages…" — manual labour, commercial vehicles, supervision of manual labour | blank |
Paragraph 1A says "Notwithstanding paragraph 1". It does not say "paragraphs 1 and 2". Paragraph 2 still opens with its wage-blind words, and its disapplication column is still empty.
The consequence, if you read the schedule as written
What 1A removes is the expensive half of the Act — overtime pay, rest-day pay, holiday pay, and termination and lay-off benefits. Take two people at the same employer:
lorry driver, RM6,000/month
within paragraph 2 — "irrespective of the amount of wages"
disapplication column: blank
keeps s60A(3) overtime, s60D holiday pay, termination benefits
office coordinator, RM4,100/month
within paragraph 1, caught by 1A at > RM4,000
loses s60(3), s60A(3), s60C(2A), s60D(3), s60D(4), s60J⚠️ The driver earns 46% more and keeps entitlements the coordinator loses. The amendment did not set out to produce that. It follows from paragraph 2 still overriding a ceiling that is no longer in paragraph 1.
The threshold is not your salary
A second detail is often more decisive. Paragraph 3 defines the wages the RM4,000 test uses as wages under section 2, but only after subtracting commissions, subsistence allowance and overtime.
salesperson: RM3,500 base + RM2,000 commission = RM5,500 gross
schedule wages = 5,500 − 2,000 = RM3,500 → below 4,000 → keeps overtime
coordinator: RM4,100 base, no commission = RM4,100 gross
schedule wages = RM4,100 → above 4,000 → loses itThe salesperson takes home RM1,400 more per month and stays inside the protected group, because commission does not count toward the test that excludes them.
Two readings are possible, and the matter is unsettled
⚠️ The text supports both readings, and nothing here says any employer has applied it wrongly.
The first reading keeps paragraph 2 alive. "Notwithstanding paragraph 1" is a narrow, deliberate formula, and the drafter who wrote 1A did not write "notwithstanding paragraphs 1 and 2". On this view paragraph 2 remains a free-standing entry with its own blank column and an express wage-blind opening, so anyone within it is an employee by virtue of paragraph 2 and 1A never reaches them.
The second reading treats it as vestigial. A manual labourer on RM5,000 also satisfies paragraph 1, "any person who has entered into a contract of service", and 1A describes its target in general terms as "the person whose wages exceeds four thousand ringgit a month". Read that way, the wage-blind words in paragraph 2 are a leftover counterweight to a ceiling that has since moved elsewhere.
Drafting convention points one way and the evident purpose of the amendment points the other, which leaves the schedule declining to settle its own question.
What this does not mean
This is not a drafting error anyone has established. Leaving a paragraph untouched while amending its neighbour is ordinary legislative practice, and the ambiguity only appears when the two are read against each other.
Nor does it mean any employer is underpaying. An employer following the second reading is applying a defensible construction of the schedule, and so is one following the first.
⚠️ We found no authority resolving it — no judgment, departmental circular or published opinion on how paragraph 1A meets paragraph 2. If one exists it settles the question, and we would want to know.
What to do with it
If you employ or are employed in one of paragraph 2's categories — manual labour, operating a commercial vehicle, supervising manual labourers — the RM4,000 line may not apply to you. That is worth establishing early, rather than in the middle of an overtime dispute.
If you are computing the threshold, compute it on schedule wages and not on gross pay. Commission, subsistence allowance and overtime come out first, and that alone moves people across the line in both directions.
And if you are drafting contracts against RM4,000, note which paragraph of the First Schedule your employee falls under before assuming the ceiling reaches them.
Where this comes from
The schedule text is from the Employment Act 1955 as consolidated at 1 January 2023, the latest amendment being Act A1651. The paragraph numbering, the wage-blind opening of paragraph 2 and the disapplication columns are quoted from that consolidation.
⚠️ One limit on the sourcing. The Attorney General's Chambers' own online text for this Act is dated 30 April 2012, a decade stale and predating the 2022 amendment entirely, so it cannot be used to read the current schedule. The paragraph numbering and wording above are taken from the amended Act rather than from that copy.
This dates the moment a court, the labour department or a further amendment addresses the interaction. Until then the schedule reads as described.
