PETALING JAYA: The Social Security Organisation (Socso) is committed to implementing improved assistance for employers and employees in the various programmes outlined in the recently announced Perlindungan Ekonomi dan Rakyat Malaysia (Permai) assistance package.
The programmes are the Wage Subsidy Programme 3.0 (WSP 3.0), SPS Lindung and the Covid-19 screening of foreign workers, said Socso in a statement on Tuesday (Jan 19).
Under the WSP 3.0, all sectors excluding retail and tourism, are eligible to receive a wage subsidy of RM600 for each employee earning less than RM4,000 per month.
“With an additional allocation of RM1bil, the government has also raised the limit of 200 employers per application to 500 employees, of which 250,000 employers employing more than 2.6 million employees are expected to benefit from this initiative, said the organisation.
Transport Minister Datuk Seri Dr Wee Ka Siong
(pic), in a statement on Tuesday (Jan 19), said the decision was to enable part-timers or freelancers to continue their activities to generate income for themselves during the pandemic. For businesses involving delivery of goods under the categories of Lori Pembawa A and Lori Pembawa C, they are required to have the operator licence, ” he said.
Dr Wee said there was a need for the Transport Ministry (MOT) to study the use of private vehicles for goods delivery by entrepreneurs whose sources of income, particularly those involved in the gig economy, had been compromised due to the pandemic to enable them to sustain their side income and business activities and their families.
Assistance packages benefited millions of Malaysians, businesses
January 19, 2021
He said the assistance involved financial injections worth RM182 billion.
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Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic early last year, the government has implemented four economic stimulus packages worth RM305 billion or more than 20 per cent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to help Malaysians and businesses as well as to protect the country’s economy.
“If needed, the government will continue to help as we have done before,” he said during a special briefing about the Malaysian Economic and Rakyat’s Protection Assistance Package (PERMAI) here today.
On Monday, Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin announced the the RM15 billion PERMAI assistance package comprising 22 initiatives to combat COVID-19.
JANUARY 8 The recent death of the Grab food rider still haunts me. He was only 31 and according to news reports, the breadwinner for his family. It is also a wake-up call on the vulnerable nature of precarious or informal work. Last year, about 30 delivery riders died while working..
Head of Public & Government Affairs, foodpanda Malaysia
According to the Ministry of Finance’s Economic Outlook for the year 2021, the gig economy is expected to be the dominant contributor to the national workforce with a projected 40 percent increase in comparison with the current global average of 20 percent.
Given the public attention the gig economy has received in the last couple of years, the Government has recognized its significance and in turn is looking into implementing new policies to look over the welfare of this particular segment, as the trigger point for this scrutiny of the ‘gig economy’ lies in the lack of a ‘safety net’.