Socso to amend Act to encourage women to return to work, says Anwar

KUALA LUMPUR: The Social Security Organisation (Socso) will amend its Act to allow disbursement of grant equivalent to 80 per cent of the insured salary value of workers to encourage women to get back into the workforce after long maternity or parental leave, said Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.

Anwar said it is estimated that more than 130,000 women who return to work after taking long maternity or parental leave will benefit from the grant, which involves an allocation of RM290mil a year.

Apart from that, he also called on employers to play a bigger role in preparing childcare centre of nursery at their workplace.

"All this while, childcare centres are provided by the government, so we have to monitor to ensure that big and rich companies also provide appropriate care centre for babies and children while their mothers work,” he said when tabling the Budget 2023 in Parliament on Friday (Feb 24).

Anwar said the government would also provide childcare centre subsidy of RM180 per month for civil servants, and increase the monthly household income eligibility limit from RM5,000 to RM7,000.

In order to expand access to early childhood education, he said the government would continue the construction of 80 nurseries and Kemas kindergartens, including 13 new projects.

Budget 2023 totalling RM388.1bil, comprised RM289.1bil for operating expenditure, RM99bil for development expenditure including RM2bil contigency savings. - Bernama