Govt hopes more gig workers will register with SOCSO

Finance Minister Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Abdul Aziz said the government had allocated grants worth RM50 million in the form of matching grants for the gig economy platform for workers' contribution under the SOCSO employment injury scheme.

He said from January till date, only seven per cent or 28,425 workers in the gig economy were registered with SOCSO compared with the total number of gig workers of 400,000 people.

To spur the initiatives for gig workers under Penjana, several engagement sessions were carried out with the agriculture sector, hawkers, transportation, goods, and food sectors, as well as some 38 supervisory platforms of the gig services.

"More than 188,000 potential freelancers have been identified," Tengku Zafrul said to reporters after making an official working visit to SOCSO today.

Also present was SOCSO chief executive Datuk Seri Dr Mohammed Azman Aziz Mohammed.

Tengku Zafrul said up to June 26, a total of RM7.07 billion was approved under the wage subsidy programme for 307,518 employers and saved more than 2.46 million workers.

Applications under the wage subsidy scheme were not approved due to various factors including technical issue, he added.

"Some 97 per cent of the issues have been settled. The main problem is (putting) incorrect business registration number and this caused them to receive the assistance late compared with those who gave the correct business registration number.

"The other is that companies gave the incorrect bank account number and are not active," he said.

Meanwhile, Mohammed Azman said SOCSO had set up a working committee to resolve the issue.

"It will take some time for us to settle because there are about a few thousand (applications) or so but we are in the process of resolving it," he said.