What is the work-life balance in Kuala Lumpur like?

Expert Info

on 4 Mar 2019

Hi! My family and I are thinking to move to Kuala Lumpur. We are in the mid 30s with a 20 months old baby boy. My husband and I work as Scrum Masters in the IT industry, and we are looking for similar jobs in Kuala Lumpur. We are both Romanian and currently living in Barcelona (Spain).

Before deciding to take this big step, we'd want to know what to expect from life there. We have several questions and some concerns, we hope that somebody can throw some light on them. Having the young member in our family our main concern is the life-work balance.

- How many working days per week are in KL in an IT company and how many hours per day?

- Are the working hours flexible?

- How much annual vacation one can take?

- How difficult is to find a job as a Scrum Master, searching remotely from an European country?

- How difficult is to balance work and life with a toddler? Are the extra hours common? Is it hard to find time after work to spend with family?

- What about the safety?

Meagan on 5 Mar 2019 - 08:27

Hello!

Though I don't know about the IT sector in particular, I can give you a few general answers here. The standard working week is five days a week, from 9 to 5. I imagine things like flexibility vary from company to company. Ten days of leave each year are guaranteed by law, but the 10 or so public holidays each year makes up for that a bit.

For more info, take a look at the work culture subsection on the Working in Malaysia page. Doing Business in Malaysia is another page you may find useful.

If you take a look at the HSBC Expat Explorer Survey results for 2018, you'll see that Malaysia placed 14th for work-life balance and has been climbing the rankings year by year.

When were you thinking of moving to KL? Have your family's visas been applied for yet?

- M

rpadurean on 11 Mar 2019 - 13:18

Hi Meagan,

Thanks a lot for your reply. We would like to move this year, but before making any further step we want to be sure about it. Our plan is to apply for a job and come with a working permit.

We didn't apply for any other visa.

Regards,

Raluca

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