Budget a boon for women workers to return to workforce

KUALA LUMPUR: More women can be expected to return to the workforce when governmentlinked companies (GLCs) provide childcare or nurseries for its women staff as announced in the 2018 Budget.

Tenaganita executive director Florence Fernandez said the initiative to ensure women in the civil service, who are five months’ (or more) pregnant, were released from their duties an hour earlier, and for GLCs to provide childcare or nurseries at headquarters should be implemented in the private sector as well.

“When this is turned into a mandatory policy across the board, everyone will have to do it.

“Currently, if it is implemented among only civil servants and GLCs, it will create a sense of double standard among the work force.

“We are, however, happy that the government announced this as all the women non-governmental organisations have been pushing for this for many years,” she said.

She said by making this a mandatory policy, more women would return to the workforce.

“Most women stop working because they cannot find a solution for childcare while some of them do not trust domestic helpers.

“This is one of the reasons why more and more women leave the workforce to care for their newborn child.”

Woman’s Aid Organisation communication officer Tan Heang Lee also supported the government’s move to increase the number of women working in GLCs, government-linked investment companies (GLICs) and statutory bodies.

In the budget announcement yesterday, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak said the government made it compulsory for GLCs, GLICs and statutory bodies to fill board of directors’ positions with 30 per cent women by end of next year.