Senior citizens want to continue working due to financial commitment - HR Ministry

KUALA LUMPUR - The Human Resources Ministry (KSM) has found that senior citizens still want to continue working due to financial commitments.

Its Deputy Minister, Mustapha Sakmud said the finding was based on a study by Talent Corporation Malaysia (TalentCorp) on the retired workforce involving 584 companies in 2019, which also found that the group refused to retire because they thought it would be difficult to get a new job once they call it a day.

"Of the 584 employers, 331 or 56.7 per cent are hiring the elderly while 253 or 43.3 per cent are not hiring senior citizens.

"In line with that, the ministry, through TalentCorp in September 2021, organised a workshop to re-employ senior citizens,” he said when winding up the motion of the Human Rights Commission (Suhakam) Report for his ministry in the Dewan Rakyat today.

Following the workshop held by the ministry through TalentCorp, it also drafted an initiative to support the reintegration of senior citizens or retirees to return to work after official retirement by holding engagement sessions with employers.

Elaborating, Mustapha said that based on statistics from the Employment Insurance System of the Social Security Organisation (Socso) from January to June 2 this year, 54 senior citizens had returned to work.

On social protection specifically for informal sector workers, including gig workers, Mustapha said a total of 449,618 people had registered and are actively contributing under the Self-Employment Social Security Scheme 2017 (Act 789) from January 2020 until June 4 this year.

"Of the total, until yesterday (June 13), a total of 133,150 have registered and contributed under the Self-Employment SchemeI (SPS Gig) through the Contribution Matching Self-Employment Scheme or SPS Contribution Matching initiative.

"The SPS Contribution Matching initiative is an incentive where those who are self-employed only need to pay 20 per cent, which is only RM46.60, of the contribution rate of RM232.80 while the balance 80 per cent, which is RM186.20, is funded by the government,” he said.

He added that under Budget 2023, the government also expanded the matching aid programme to three more sectors, namely sports, education and agents.

Meanwhile, Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Law and Institutional Reform) Ramkarpal Singh said that SUHAKAM received 5,440 complaints from 2015 to 2020, with 58 per cent of them having been resolved while the majority of unsolved cases involved citizenship issues in Sabah.

On the proposed amendment to the Suhakam Act, Ramkarpal said the government is examining several amendments, including the appointment and dismissal procedures of Suhakam commissioners as well as the empowerment of Suhakam's role in the courts.

Some of the ministries which took part in the winding-up session were the Ministry of Health; Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development; and the Prime Minister’s Department (Sabah, Sarawak Affairs and Special Functions).

The sitting continues tomorrow. - BERNAMA