Foreign Workers Will Get Socso Coverage Starting Jan 1

According to NST, the Malaysian Cabinet has decided to place social security protection of foreign workers under the Social Security Organisation (Socso) starting 1st January 2019.

Human Resources Minister M. Kulasegaran said this was in line with the Equality of Treatment (Accident Compensation) Convention, 1925 (No.19) and Conference Committee on the Application of Standard under the International Labour Organisation (ILO), which Malaysia had approved.

“Employers who hire foreign workers with valid documents including expatriates must register their employees with Socso and contribute to the Employment Injury Scheme under the Employees’ Social Security Act 1969 (Act 4).

“Benefits under the Employment Injury Scheme include Medical Benefit, Temporary Disablement Benefit, Permanent Disablement Benefit, Constant-Attendance Allowance, Dependants’ Benefit and Rehabilitation, as well as RM6,500 repatriation cost including funeral,” M. Kulasegaran said in a statement.

M. Kulasegaran also said that foreign workers would not be covered by the Invalidity of the Pension Scheme under Act 4. Pic credit: The Star

““Employers can go to any of Socso’s 54 offices throughout the country including Sabah and Sarawak to register their foreign workers. The Ministry, together with Socso, will conduct engagements with the stakeholders soon.”

According to Khazanah report, Malaysia was home to around 2.2 million foreign workers in 2017, with most of them hired in the agriculture and construction sectors.

The State of Households 2018: Different Realities report published by Khazanah Research Institute said that last year, the two sectors employed 40.5 percent of foreign workers. 35.9 percent were employed in services while the remaining 23 percent in manufacturing.

Human Resources Minister M. Kulasegaran has been busy lately, working with the Home Ministry to abolish the system of recruiting foreign workers through agents or companies. The minister also announced that the government will discontinue the 30% employer contribution to the Human Resources Development Fund (HRDF).

Last but not least, M. Kulasegaran also announced that Nepalese workers can now be hired directly through government-to-government (G2G) initiative. He also said the government is still negotiating with other countries such as Bangladesh, Indonesia and India to ease the process of hiring foreign workers.

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