As we approach Labour Day on May 1, we acknowledge the contributions which workers in Malaysia have made to the country.

The proposed Employment Insurance Scheme (EIS) by the prime minister, which is expected to be tabled in parliament in the July / August 2017 sitting, has the potential to help Malaysian workers through a transition process when they have lost their jobs.

But given that the details of this scheme have not been disclosed, and no parliamentary committee has been set up to look at the issue of jobs, employment, and the economy, there remains many questions to be asked about the EIS.

Here, we pose the following 10 questions to be answered so that there can be greater confidence that the EIS will be an effective program to help our country's workers.

1) The terms of retrenchment compensation are currently spelled out in the Employment Act 1955 and the Employment Termination and Lay-Off Benefits (ETLB) Regulations 1980. Will the retrenchment compensation continue to be paid out by the employer after the introduction of the EIS? Will workers be worse off in the long run if retrenchment benefits are cut / abolished as part of a package deal for introducing the EIS?

2) The estimated amount collected will be between RM700 million to RM800 million a year (based on 0.25 percent Employers and Employees contribution, and 6.5 million workers with RM2,000 monthly salary). How much will the administrative costs be? Will it be as high as 25 percent of the amount collected as some reports have indicated?

3) Since the EIS is an insurance scheme like Socso, does this mean that employees won’t be able to get back these funds if they don’t get retrenched in their lifetime? How much disposable income will the EIS scheme take away from the regular worker over their lifetimes?

4) How will the EIS funds be managed? Will it be managed in the same manner as the Socso funds which have delivered returns that, on average, are lower than EPF’s returns?

5) One of the purposes of the EIS is to help retrain and reskill workers who have lost their jobs. How will these retraining and reskilling programs be different from existing programs which are being implemented by the government, such as Skim Latihan 1 Malaysia (SL1M) and others? The government must provide a convincing case that the provision of retraining schemes under the EIS will be more effective than current programs...