Retirement Benefit in Malaysia: Understanding the Legal Framework and Its Challenges to the Migrant Workers

Abstract

The retirement benefits scheme is one of the social security protections accorded to employees around the world. In Malaysia, the retirement benefits scheme is in the form of the contribution made by both employer and employee at a specified rate based on the employee’s monthly wages and such contribution will be credited into the employee’s fund. An employee is allowed to withdraw money from the fund when he or she reaches retirement age. The doctrinal study found that the retirement benefits scheme in Malaysia differs greatly between the local employees and migrant workers. Although migrant workers are allowed to contribute to the retirement benefits scheme known as Employees Provident Fund, their contribution is voluntary, and not done compulsorily. The contribution of the employer is capped at only RM5 per month, which is very low. It is exacerbated by the fact that the contribution in the fund is not transferable as the Employees Provident Fund Act does not provide any provision to transfer the retirement benefit to another scheme in another country. It is hoped that these challenges faced by migrant workers will be given due consideration by the government to allow the migrant workers to have adequate social security protection by reforming the current retirement benefit statute or introducing a new retirement benefit statute that only protects the migrant workers.