Create working opportunities for our senior citizens

It is undeniable that Malaysian population is aging and many social problems will definitely crop up if no corrective or cushion-like measures are being taken.

As the minimum retirement age for most private-sector workers in our country is set at age 60 under the Minimum Retirement Age Act 2012 and also life expectancy of our population is expected to increase from 72.6 years (men) and 77.5 years (women) to 74.2 years and 79.1 years, respectively, the degree of increasing dependency of the aging population is inevitable.

It is also a known fact that only about 20% of our Malaysian EPF members can sustain themselves during retirement. So we can now foresee the problems. The survival of other 80% is uncertain. Some of them may have the support of their family but what about the rest or those unfortunate.

At the age 60 and retired, the majority of these are still healthy and physical fit to work. We have millions of foreign labour working in our country and some of these labour can be replaced by our retired people. If you are visiting foreign countries, you can notice that most of the cleaning work at the airports are done by the senior people of the said countries. Additionally, old people are working in shopping malls and business centres as cleaners too. Air-port is an area of security, by recruiting our senior citizens as cleaners are surely an added security. Both shopping malls and business centres are safe places for senior citizen and healthy and old people to work.