State outpacing Selangor in wage and job growth, says MCA leader
PETALING JAYA: Johor has recorded strong growth in key economic indicators, including economic expansion, formal sector wages and median household income, and is even outperforming Selangor in several areas, says Datuk Seri Dr Wee Ka Siong (pic).
The MCA president said voters should judge state governments based on results rather than rhetoric alone.
Responding to remarks by Selangor PKR election director Dr Sathia Prakash Nadarajan, who claimed Johor Barisan Nasional was “out of ideas” and targeting DAP ahead of the state election, Dr Wee said Johor Mentri Besar Datuk Onn Hafiz Ghazi was merely reiterating Barisan’s position that it would not cooperate with DAP in the Johor polls.
“Dr Sathia said Johoreans are mature enough to assess leaders based on performance. I agree. So let us compare the performance of the Johor Barisan government with that of the Selangor government since Barisan won the state election in 2022,” Dr Wee said in a TikTok post yesterday.
He said any comparison should be based on measurable indicators such as economic growth, investment, job creation, wages and household income.
Citing official department figures, Dr Wee noted Johor’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) expanded by 6.4% in 2025, outstepping Selangor’s estimated 5% to 5.5% growth block and the national average of 5.2%. On the investment front, Johor locked in RM110bil in approved ventures for 2025, beating Selangor’s RM83.9bil haul.
On employment, he said Johor created 352,200 jobs between the first quarter of 2022 and the first quarter of 2026, representing growth of 19.8%, while Selangor added 456,400 jobs, or 12.7%.
Adjusting for population scale, Johor generated 83.9 new positions per 1,000 residents, outstripping Selangor’s ratio of 62.5.
Dr Wee added that formal sector wages in Johor rose 42.7% between February 2022 and December 2025, surpassing the national increase of 33% and Selangor’s 25.9%.
Median household income in Johor also grew by 12.1% from 2022 to 2025, compared with the national average of 10.7% and Selangor’s 7.4%, he said.
“Taken together, the picture is very clear. Johor is not only growing faster than Selangor, it is also ahead of the national average in economic growth, formal sector wages and median household income,” he said.
While acknowledging that Selangor remains larger in overall economic size and income levels, Dr Wee said the growth momentum was now clearly in Johor’s favour.
“This is not perception. This is not rhetoric. This is raw data,” he said.
