Parliament Amends Employees’ Social Security Act, Enables Improved Protection For Eligible Employees

Alex Cheong Pui Yin

22nd July 2022 - 2 min read

Dewan Rakyat has passed the Employees’ Social Security (Amendment) Bill 2022, which will enable improved Social Security Organisation (SOCSO) benefits for a wider group of eligible employees. This is in a bid to provide better social security coverage.

According to Human Resources Minister Datuk Seri M. Saravanan, the amendment bill will increase the maximum monthly salary ceiling limit from the existing RM4,000 to RM5,000 for contributions. With this, eligible employees in Malaysia who are earning RM5,000 and above will now be entitled to improved protection, including temporary and permanent disability benefits, disability pension, and retirement pension – attributed to higher employer-employee contribution rates.

Datuk Seri Saravanan further shared a sample calculation to better illustrate how the amendment bill may benefit employees. “For example, an employee who is 30 years old and earns more than RM5,000, the person is eligible to receive permanent disability benefits, and 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,” he said, adding that this was a 25.3% increase.

The minister stressed that this amendment is timely, especially as the cost of living has now increased. It will offer wider protection to individuals who are earning salaries of RM4,000 and above to RM5,000, he said.

Aside from that, Datuk Seri Saravanan also shared that as of December 2021, there were 19.7 million Malaysian employees and 1.94 million foreign employees registered with SOCSO, while the total number of beneficiaries stood at 678,329 persons. Additionally, benefit payments amounted to RM4.334 billion as of 2021.

Meanwhile, as of May 2022, the number of beneficiaries increased to 664,265 employees with payments amounting to RM1.958 billion.

(Sources: The Edge Markets, Human Resources Online)

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Alex Cheong Pui Yin

Previously covered recruitment-related stories and had a short stint as a copywriter for the property industry. She subsequently developed an interest in investment and robo-advisors.

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