Career re-entry grant for women launched
Published on: Wednesday, March 04, 2015
Kuala Lumpur: The Women, Family and Community Development Ministry today launched the Career Re-entry Grant to encourage women who stopped working to return to the workforce.Its minister Datuk Seri Rohani Abdul Karim said the RM10 million grant allocated under the 2015 Budget and given through Talent Corp Malaysia Bhd (TalentCorp) was part of the national agenda to increase women's participation in the workforce and to maximise the country's human capital potential."This initiative will also support employers in meeting their human capital needs, and to increase diversity and inclusiveness at the workplace in contributing to the long-term success of businesses," she said when officiating at the Career Re-entry Programme 2015, here, Monday
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Rohani said the Career Re-entry Grant, comprising the Workforce Resourcing Grant and Work Retention Grant, targeted 200 women who had stopped working to care for their children to return to the workforce this year.The Workforce Resourcing Grant will see companies receiving 75 per cent joint sponsorship of the costs of getting the women to return to work which include recruitment cost and investment on technology.The Work Retention Grant is offered to companies able to recruit and retain such female workers for more than six months, and the grant is equivalent to their one month's salary.Rohani said the initiative could assist the government achieve the target of having 55 per cent women's participation in the workforce by the end of this year and 30 per cent at the decision-making level by the end of 2016.
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Up to 2013, Malaysian women's participation in the country's workforce was at 52.4 per cent, the lowest among ASEAN countries, she said.Rohani also announced today that her ministry was the first ministry to introduce the flexible working arrangement for its female employees who showed high work performance, obtaining 85 per cent of the evaluation marks.
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"From today, the ministry has opened applications to its female employees who wish to join the programme, whereby they will be given three choices - to work at home during the working hours, flexible time to come to work and to return home as long as the working hours are covered, and to return home earlier and the working hours owing to be covered later," she said.Rohani said the pilot programme would start on March 15 and would be for a duration of three months before being evaluated on its effectiveness.Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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