PETALING JAYA: The Budget 2024 allocation of more than RM200mil for the Social Security Organisation (Socso) to empower the social protection network and to spur the labour market is in line with the Federal Government's structural reformation agenda.
Human Resources Minister V. Sivakumar said that the allocation involves the implementation of six initiatives.
These include two new ones, namely to ease the integration of targeted groups into the public sector and raise the salary ceiling for Socso contributions from RM5,000 to RM6,000.
He said the salary ceiling increase will take effect after amendments to related laws are made.
Sivakumar said this would increase cash benefits by 20.2%, benefitting 1.45 million workers and their dependents.
He said the government's efforts to beef up worker protection were also reflected in the improvement of two other existing initiatives, namely the Self-Employment Social Security Scheme for which RM100mil was allocated and the Housewives Social Security Scheme for which RM50mil was allocated.
Sivakumar said RM35mil was allocated for the Career Training Programme and RM30mil for the Private Sector Work Support Scheme.
He said the targeted group for both programmes are the disabled, former prisoners and senior citizens.
Sivakumar said the policy to hire 1% of disabled workers would be extended to former prisoners and senior citizens at various government ministries, government-linked investment companies (GLIC) and government-linked companies (GLC).
He said the implementation of the policy would be carried out by Socso's employment service officers and Malaysia's national employment portal MyfutureJobs.
Sivakumar said improvements to the implementation of Budget 2024 initiatives would be carried out from time to time.
