Cabinet paper on employment insurance scheme ready to be tabled

A Cabinet paper on the proposed Employment Insurance Scheme (EIS) to assist retrenched workers is ready to be tabled in Parliament by early next year at the latest.

Human Resources Minister Datuk Seri Richard Riot Jaem said the scheme, which required workers and employers to contribute as practised in the Social Security Organisation (Socso), was important to ensure retrenched workers were able to last at least four months before getting a new job.

"It must be done because if a company is unable to pay the workers' salaries after being declared a bankrupt, we (ministry) cannot force them to pay.

"For example in the case of Rayani Air, we cannot do anything except to file the case in the Industrial Court," he said.

Riot disclosed this at a media conference after meeting 300 staff of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) southern region here today.

He said EIS, which would benefit 6.5 million workers in the country, has in principal generally been agreed by the employers based on the ministry's meeting with business companies.

The EIS was proposed after his ministry sent several of its officials abroad, including to Europe, United States, Japan, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam to study the system that could help workers in the event they were being retrenched, he added.