Proposed rate for EIS Bill to be slashed to 0.2% in October

PETALING JAYA: The contribution rate under the Employment Insurance System (EIS) Bill will be slashed from 0.5% to 0.2% when this goes back to Parliament in October.

Human Resources Minister Datuk Seri Richard Riot said a tripartite engagement on Aug 10 had agreed, among others, to propose a revision of the contribution rate from 0.5% each by employers and employees to 0.2%.

“The Cabinet subsequently agreed on Aug 11 for the revised Bill to be tabled in the Parliament meeting in October,” he added in a statement here yesterday.

The Bill, which was tabled and supposed to be debated in the last Parliament meeting, was deferred due to an outcry from bosses and employers.

The Cabinet had on Aug 4 agreed to postpone the Bill to allow for a tripartite engagement to be held, led jointly by Riot, Second Finance Minister Datuk Seri Johari Abdul Ghani and two Ministers in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Dr Wee Ka Siong and Datuk Paul Low.

Under the scheme, employees who have lost their jobs may be able to claim a portion of the insured salary for a period of between three and six months of being unemployed. The EIS will be administered by Socso.

Riot said several engagements were conducted with the employers’ federation and trade unions before proceeding to draft and table the Bill.

“The ministry would like to make it clear that it has conducted no less than 78 engagements with employers’ federation and trade unions at national and state level before drafting the EIS model and Bill,” he said.

The ministry, said Riot, had also conducted study visits to several countries which had successfully implemented the EIS system in a bid to learn from their experience.

“We also engaged experts from the International Labour Organisa­tion (ILO) to assist in the study to help design an EIS model for Malaysia,” he said.