Between Survival and Dignity: A Quiet Reflection on Work in Brunei Today

Someone asked me a simple question about minimum wage.

The more I thought about it, the more it became a question about dignity — not just numbers.

Part One of a quiet reflection on work in Brunei today.

☕ KopiTalk with MHO

Minimum Pay, Meaningful Work — Part One
Minimum Pay: Survival, Not Dignity

Recently, someone asked me — quite candidly — for my opinion on the issue of minimum wage in Brunei.

It did not begin in a seminar room, nor in a policy paper. It began with a forwarded message, a simple exchange among friends who were trying to make sense of a complicated reality. The questions were disarmingly direct:

What is the minimum pay required for a Bruneian to live on?
What is a meaningful income?
What is a meaningful job?

One voice insisted that any wider discussion about productivity, employment or economic participation would be redundant unless we first answered these basic questions. Another recalled an old poverty study from years ago suggesting that a living threshold might be around BND 1,500 a month — while elsewhere, people were quoting figures as low as BND 500.

Between those two numbers lies more than just a policy debate. It reflects the tension between survival and dignity.

My immediate response in that conversation was simple: minimum pay is about survival, not dignity. And perhaps that distinction is where this discussion must begin.

Brunei is not new to the idea of minimum wage. The country has already taken a measured step through the Employment (Minimum Wage) Order, which entered its second phase on 1 April 2025. The policy mandates a wage floor of BND 500 per month, or BND 2.62 per hour, covering selected industries such as finance, healthcare, education, professional services and hospitality. The intention is clear — to strengthen worker welfare, narrow wage gaps and provide a basic safeguard against exploitation.

But perhaps before we debate whether the number is high or low, we must first be honest about what minimum wage is designed to do — and just as importantly, what it is not meant to solve.

Minimum wage is, at its core, a protective mechanism. It is a boundary line drawn to prevent exploitation, not a guarantee of comfort. It sets the lowest acceptable standard, not the ideal destination. When policymakers speak of a wage floor, they are not promising prosperity; they are establishing a safeguard so that work does not slip below a level society considers unacceptable.

In that sense, minimum wage answers a narrow question: How low is too low? It does not necessarily answer a deeper question that many Bruneians quietly ask themselves — Is this enough to live with dignity?

The distinction matters.

When the figure of BND 500 is discussed, some hear it as a lifeline. Others hear it as a reminder of how far the conversation still needs to go. And perhaps both reactions are valid. A policy designed to protect the most vulnerable will inevitably feel modest to those measuring it against rising living costs, family responsibilities and the quiet expectations of adulthood in modern Brunei.

To be fair, the phased approach suggests that policymakers are trying to balance two realities at once. On one side stands the welfare of workers; on the other, the capacity of industries — particularly smaller enterprises — to absorb higher labour costs without shrinking opportunities.

So perhaps the real question at this stage is not whether minimum wage is right or wrong. That chapter has already begun.

If minimum pay defines where survival begins, then the more uncomfortable question waiting ahead is this — where does dignity truly start, and are we ready to talk honestly about the gap in between? (MHO/02/2026)