The Malaysian Employers Federation (MEF) has suggested that the Federal Government could cut back the admission of one million foreign workers set to enter the country if more Malaysian women decided to join the workforce.
The MEF, which represents business owners across the country, made the call as Putrajaya announced it was going ahead with a plan to bring in 1.5 million Bangladeshi workers, beginning this year.
MEF executive director Shamsuddin Bardan told The Malaysian Insider‘s Sheridan Mahavera that given the right tax breaks and other financial incentives, Malaysian women could go over the current employment rate of 53% nationwide, an employment statistic that is among the lowest in Southeast Asia.
One way to incentivise women to enter the workforce, Shamsuddin said, was to have Putrajaya provide tax deductions for companies that pay their employees a child-care subsidy.
“In the past, companies would be able to claim a tax deduction when they gave their employees RM250 for child care purposes. This was not part of the wage but a kind of subsidy,” he said.
“Currently, these fees are quite high. If a woman has three children and each kid costs RM400 to send to a centre, the total is RM1,200 a month.
“So why would a woman come back to work for only RM2,000 a month?”
Putrajaya has set in the 11th Malaysia Plan that women’s participation in the national workforce to rise to 59% by 2020.
