The newly-minted ‘1Malaysia Support for Housewives’ programme will be able to unearth the “hidden skills” of housewives to get them to contribute to the job market. So says Deputy Human Resources Minister Ismail Abdul Muttalib.

“There are a lot of women who have hidden talents or skills, but who would rather take care of their children and families, rather than take up a paying job.

“We, from the ministry, are trying to implement different approaches to help reveal these skills and get them to contribute to the country,” Ismail told reporters at the launch of a seminar on minimum wage today.

The ‘1Malaysia Support for Housewives’ programme is among the strategies announced by Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak in his 2015 Budget speech last Friday.

The programme is to emphasise skills training and incentives for housewives to improve their opportunities to return to the job market.

Speaking at the launch of the seminar, titled ‘Seminar on implementation of minimum wages: Lessons learnt from the Asean member states and dialogue partners’, Ismail ( above, left ) also said the government was preparing to face challenges from the implementation of minimum wage in the country.

“As a country that is newly implementing the minimum wage, we are expecting problems and challenges to arise.

“We will use information and knowledge from other countries, including from the International Labour Organisation (ILO) to face these challenges.”

Minimum wage to be under constant scrutiny

The Maran MP also added that the current minimum wage would be under constant scrutiny and be revised from time to time.

“We will be doing ‘revisions’ to the minimum wage. We will take input that we get from this seminar and other findings that might be implemented in the end-of-year revisions.”

Asked whether the ministry would prosecute employers who do not abide by the minimum wage rule, Ismail said that they would be cautioned first, while “legal action would only be a last resort”.

The minimum wage plan was announced by the prime minister in the 2010 Budget and its  implementation began on Jan 1, 2013.

The minimum wage that has been set by the government is RM900 for Peninsular Malaysia and RM800 for Sabah, Sarawak and the Federal Territory of Labuan.

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