MTUC: Enforce new retirement age law now

The Malaysian Trades Union Congress (MTUC) today called on the private sector to extend the retirement age from 55 to 60 years immediately rather than wait for the law to be implemented.

The government had agreed to extend the retirement age to 60 years for private sector workers and the bill on this had been passed by the Dewan Negara recently, the MTUC vice-president A Balasubramaniam said.

He said it would take another six months or so for the bill to be gazzetted and implemented, and in the meantime thousands of workers who were reaching the mandatory age of 55 years would be retiring.

"The MTUC is very concerned with this group since most of them had made representation to the congress to seek reemployment because they were still healthy enough and able to continue working," he told Bernama.

“Moreover, these workers had very heavy responsibilities as they had outstanding housing loans, insurance and medical bill payments and children education to take care of,” he added.

Under the Minimum Retirement Age Bill 2012 passed by the Parliament recently, the compulsory retirement age of private sector employees is raised to 60 years old, and an employer shall not retire an employee prematurely before he attains the minimum retirement age.