Retirement Age at 60?

Saw this news in TheStar Online this morning:

SEREMBAN: The retirement age for the country’s more than one million civil servants may be increased to 60 as early as next year.

It is learnt Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak is expected to make an announcement on the matter in September, when he tables the Budget, sources said.

It is learnt the move will also cover employees in statutory bodies such as the Employees Provident Fund and Social Security Orga­nisation.

“Malaysia has the lowest retirement age in the region. We cannot allow our experienced employees to leave when they can contribute a lot more to the nation,” said one of the sources.

He added that since pension payment was now calculated based on 30 years of service, many civil servants would want to retire later so that they would have more money for their post-retirement years. The retirement age for civil servants in Thailand and Indonesia is 60, while it is 62 in Singapore.

Another source, however, said the Govern­ment was not likely to make the retirement age compulsory, allowing those who wished to retire at 56 or 58 to do so. In 2001, former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad had said the retirement age for civil servants would eventually be raised to 60 years.

The retirement age for government employees was increased from 55 to 56 in 2001.

This was increased to 58 in March 2008 during the premiership of Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

When contacted, Cuepacs president Omar Osman said the congress had submitted a memorandum to the Government in 1998 and again during Abdullah’s tenure to revise the retirement age to 60.

“It was, however, only raised to 58. We hope the Government will increase it to 60 as we need experienced employees to help achieve the Government’s agenda for progress,” he said.

He added it was a fact that many public sector employees married later in life and still had young children even when they had reached 58.

“I have friends who are in their 50s but whose children are still in primary schools. These group of people are an asset to the nation and it will be a win-win situation if the retirement age is raised,” he added.

Personally I think it's a good move by the government to raised the retirement age of the civil servants to 60 years old.

Person like my father who is going reach his retirement age but have to raise his kid who is still in primary school and pay for house installment.

Talking about working, I need a job! Any vacancies in Setapak area? Prefer data entry, clerk, promoter (not roving team) etc. JobSeeker is not helping!