Talent & Tech Asia Summit 2024
65th LAKSANA report: Progress on wage subsidy programme (PSU), Prihatin special grant (GKP 3.0), and more

65th LAKSANA report: Progress on wage subsidy programme (PSU), Prihatin special grant (GKP 3.0), and more

The report also touched on frontliners’ allowance, which saw a total of RM941.38mn disbursed to doctors, nurses, and other medical staff who are directly involved in managing and curtailing the COVID-19 outbreak.

Malaysia’s Ministry of Finance (MOF) released the 65th LAKSANA report on 12 August 2021 (Thursday), covering updates on social and economic COVID-19 restrictions, National Recovery Plan, business and employment programmes, as well as other initiatives.

In this coverage, however, Human Resources Online will focus on the following:

  • The business and employment programmes and statistics, and
  • The frontliners’ allowance.

Read below for more details relevant to employers and HR leaders in Malaysia.

Business and employment programmes and statistics

In this segment, the Ministry shared the progress of:

  • The wage subsidy programme (PSU) - 1.0 and 2.0;
  • Prihatin special grant (GKP 3.0), and
  • SME digitalisation grant,
  • Support for SMEs and mid-tier companies for technical and digital adoption.

PSU

According to the report, through PSU 1.0, a total of 322,177 employers and 2.64mn employees have received PSU benefits under PRIHATIN and the National Economic Regeneration Plan (PENJANA). And as of 30 July 2021, the approved wage subsidy applications have reached a value of RM12.914bn.

For PSU 2.0, as of 30 July 2021, a total RM1.334bn has been disbursed to 77,226 employers. This helped them to continue to operate and retain employment for 681,838 employees.

GKP

With regard to GKP 3.0, as of 15 July, over 99% of the recipients of GKP 3.0 and additional GKP have successfully received full financial assistance.

“The total allocation channelled to almost 1mn micro-SMEs under GKP since COVID-19 hit the country is RM6.1bn,” the report stated.

SME digitalisation grant

For the unacquainted, Bank Simpanan Nasional provides matching grants amounting up to RM5,000 to assist SMEs to adopt digitalisation services in their day-to-day business operations. This grant is provided by the Government for a period of five years.

As of 30 July 2021, it was reported that a total of RM82.32mn has been disbursed to 30,938 SMEs.

To help organisations with technical and digital adoption, the government has also allocated RM700mn to assist and encourage SMEs and mid-tier companies (MTCs) towards the digitalisation of operations and trade channels, under PENJANA.

As of 30 July 2021, RM79.25mn has been disbursed to 13,877 businesses in the form of grants and loans for digitalisation services subscriptions.

Upskilling and reskilling

Beyond that, as of 30 July 2021, a total of 150,908 participants have been approved (compared to 150,764 in the previous week) to enter in the government’s upskilling and reskilling programmes—SME Development, Industry Revolution 4.0, INSKEN Business Training, to name a couple—through agencies like HDRF and MEDAC.

Other agencies involved in upskilling and reskilling Malaysians are: MOTAC, Majlis Amanah Rakyat (MARA), East Coast Economic Region Development Council (ECER), Northern Corridor Implementation Authority (NCIA), and Kementerian Pengajian Tinggi (KPT).

Frontliners’ allowance

According to the LAKSANA report, as of 30 July 2021, a total of RM941.38mn has been disbursed based on 2,580,506 claims received from doctors, nurses and other medical staff who are directly involved in managing and curtailing the COVID-19 outbreak.

This special allowance is also extended to the members of the military, police, customs, immigration, fire service, members of the Malaysia Civil Defence Force, and RELA members (The People's Volunteer Corps) who are directly involved in the Movement Control Order (MCO) implementation.


Also read: SOCSO expands SPS Lindung to protect the self-employed under Grab Malaysia and foodpanda


Image / Provided

Follow us on Telegram and on Instagram @humanresourcesonline for all the latest HR and manpower news from around the region!

Follow us on Telegram and on Instagram @humanresourcesonline for all the latest HR and manpower news from around the region!

Free newsletter

Get the daily lowdown on Asia's top Human Resources stories.

We break down the big and messy topics of the day so you're updated on the most important developments in Asia's Human Resources development – for free.

subscribe now open in new window