SMEs support 90 days maternity leave, plead for time and flexibility to implement
KUCHING: Small and Medium Enterprises Association (Samenta) Malaysia welcomes the announcement by the Finance Minister in his Budget 2020 speech that the Employment Act 1955 will be reviewed to, among others, increase paid maternity leave to 90 days effective 2021.
In a media statement, the association’s Policy and Government Relations chairman Datuk William Ng said that they are supportive of the move and believe it is in the right direction to align Malaysia with the global norm.
According to Ng, the association would like to call on the government to allow employers, especially small and medium enterprises (SMEs) more time to implement the proposal, and to provide some flexibility in implementing them. Samenta has suggested that employers in certain sectors such as plantations and manufacturing, be allowed the flexibility to implement the incremental leaves in stages. “For example, 75 days in 2021 and 90 days from 2022 onwards. Manpower and resource planning could take up to a full year to roll out, and many SMEs are also subject to the workflow and procedures determined by principals and pricing that are often locked in for multiyears based on costs at time of negotiation,” Ng explained. The association also suggested flexibility for employees to shorten the maternity leave to 60 days in lieu of payment. This give parents the option that would make most sense to them, based on their specific conditions and situations. Samenta’s third suggestion was on providing tax incentives in Budget 2021 for workplaces to install nursing facilities to better transition new mothers back into work. “Again, we re-iterate our support for the 90 days maternity leave,” he added.