Parliament passes Employees' Social Security (Amendment) Bill 2022

KUALA LUMPUR: The Dewan Rakyat today passed the Employees' Social Security (Amendment) Bill 2022 which aims to improve social security coverage by increasing certain benefits for employees.

Human Resources Minister Datuk Seri M. Saravanan said this included increasing the maximum monthly salary ceiling limit from RM4,000 to RM5,000 for contributions will improve protection under the Social Security Organisation (Socso).

The increase, he said, would involve, among others, temporary disability benefits, permanent disability benefits, disability pensions and retirement pension.

"To further explain this ,for example, an employee who is 30 years old and earns more than RM5,000, the person is eligible to receive permanent disability benefits, the calculation of the lump sum payment for that employee according to the existing salary ceiling amounts to RM177,252.30.

"However, based on the calculation of the new salary ceiling, the employee will receive a total of RM222,126.30. In this regard, there is an increase of 25.3 percent for the new salary ceiling compared to the existing salary ceiling," he said when presenting the bill for the second reading.

Meanwhile, when winding up the debate on the bill, Saravanan said the amendment was apt as it would give wider protection to those earning more than RM4,000 to RM5,000 as the cost of living has now increased.

He said there were 19.7 million Malaysian employees and 1.94 million foreign employees registered in the Socso system, with the total number of beneficiaries at 678,329 people as of December 2021.

In benefit payments, he said, it amounted to RM4.334 billion as of 2021.

"As of May 2022, the beneficiaries comprised 664,265 employees with payments amounting to RM1.958 billion.

"For employees involved in accidents, they are eligible to receive benefits under Socso during the first month of work even if they have not contributed yet. When they receive an offer letter, even if they have not contributed, they are still eligible," he said.

The Parliament sitting continues on Monday.

-- BERNAMA