> Pension and Wages Council for private sector

The Human Resource Ministry will initiate talks with the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) to look into the proposal for the setting-up of a pension scheme for nearly 10 million private sector employees in the country.

Its minister, Datuk Dr S.Subramaniam said the ministry was ready for discussions with the EPF to look at ways of providing better protection to private sector employees.

"The private sector employees should have a similar mechanism as what the civil servants are enjoying currently in terms of the pension scheme," he told reporters after closing the National Tripartite Conference on Decent Work at the Putra World Trade Centre here, Friday.

However, Dr Subramaniam stressed that it was beyond the government's scope to set-up such a pension scheme for private sector employees, adding that only the EPF could implement it.

On another development, he said the Ministry was in the midst of identifying sectors which were paying low wages to local workers.

"Now not many local workers, especially the younger ones, are interested in the plantation sector because the wages are as low as RM400 a month. This is where the need for foreign workers arises," he said.

Subramaniam also said the ministry was now intervening to resolve the disparity in wages by setting-up a wage council, which would be industry based.

"If we have a wage council, for example the hospitality industry, then the council can come-up with the minumum wage for the sector," he said - Bernama.