KUALA LUMPUR: About 26% of the 915,616 employers registered with the Social Security Organisation (PERKESO) have not been submitting the monthly contributions of their workers.
“These 238,060 non-compliant employers are usually small to medium enterprises in the service and food and beverage industries,” said chief executive officer Datuk Seri Dr Mohammed Azman Aziz Mohammed.
“Reasons cited for non-compliance ranged from cutting costs to being unaware or uncertain of the law (on mandatory contributions),” he said, citing statistics as of April.
These reasons, he said, were unacceptable as the quantum of contributions were “affordable” and the law had been well-established.
As such, he said employers have been given a one-month grace period from yesterday to June 22 to do what is necessary.
He said that errant contributors who still failed to do so would be liable to compounds, court action or a late contribution payment of 6% per annum.
Speaking to reporters yesterday, Mohammed Azman said that PERKESO’s Ops Kesan over the last 17 years found that the rate of non-compliance among employers hovered between 15% and 21%.
This works out to about one in five employers, he said, describing this rate as “quite high”.
Compounds for non-compliance peaked in 2025 with 5,099 compounds amounting to RM3.58mil while 4,394 employers were charged in court.
For the period 2020 to 2025, a total of 19,190 compound notices were issued, involving a sum of RM11.9mil, while 17,686 cases were prosecuted under the Employees’ Social Security Act and the Employment Insurance System Act.
Mohammed Azman pointed out PERKESO would focus its enforcement this year on two new sectors, namely hawkers and gig workers, in line with the Gig Workers Act which came into force on March 31.
“Our approach, however, is a ‘soft landing’ by taking into account the constraints in view of current economic environment driven by global uncertainties,” he said.
He noted that a total of 892,000 gig workers have been registered since the Act was enforced, with e-hailing and p-hailing riders forming the majority (70% to 80%).
As for foreign workers, he said that 495,380 foreign labourers had been registered since 2019 but no contributions since then.
The construction sector ranked the highest for non-compliance at 21.4%, followed by manufacturing (20.9%); other services (12.6%).
