Globally, we are all fighting an invisible war with the acute focus to save lives and livelihood. Our labour market is not immune to the global economic volatility.
Since two-thirds of total household incomes in Malaysia are from the labour market, their livelihood would be severely affected by the pandemic. This calls for immediate and appropriate assistance; efforts to improve the income inequality and socio-economic of everyday Malaysians must be centred on the labour market interventions.
The primary motivation is to protect workers against employment shocks and job losses. Through Socso’s ecosystem, from January 2020 until August 2021, Socso has paid RM628mil monetary assistance to workers who lost their jobs and disbursed more than RM17bil to implement wage subsidies for employers to retain their local workers.
The Covid-19 pandemic has definitely exposed the cracks in the system and landed heavy blows on the Malaysian economy. Through the period, unemployment has increased from an average rate of 3.3% in 2019 to 4.5% in 2020, inducing an additional 202.8 thousand unemployed people.