Extend employment age limits

THE Election Commission chairman’s retirement age has been extended by one year, from 65 to 66. What about the employment age limits of the general workforce in the country?
The Cabinet must also consider this overall employment age limit as the laws pertaining to the upper limit of age of employment has not kept up with the times.
The retirement age in North America is 65, meaning the workers need not be a dependent on his children or society. He can continue to work if he chooses to.
Our Civil Law Act of 1956 states that it is fixed at 55 years of age.
But, most of us are still healthy and able at the current retiring age. And some professions or jobs and skills mature and become more honed with age. So retiring ‘early’ is a waste of the skills that take years to build.
Our Civil Law Act is just the English law adopted to apply to Malaya before independence.
Of course, the insurance industry and lobby are supportive of such a limit for obvious reasons, that is, it will not be burdened with compensations to be paid out beyond such an age limit.
Unfortunately, our legislators and the Law Reform Commissioner have not acted on the matter which involves the entire Malaysian workforce from Peninsular Malaysia to Sabah and Sarawak.
As the years go by, even the retirement age of civil servants has been extended from 55 to 56 years and in the Judiciary, judges continue to serve up to the age of 65.
While such age limits are applica-ble to the civil service to perhaps, generate job opportunities for the younger workers, these limits are not applicable to the private sector.
It is about time the authorities, especially the Human Resources Ministry, inject some meaning to this age limit in our Civil Law Act and do a revision with it immediately.
We can find time to extend the employment of the Election Commission chairman at this busy time of our history, and I am sure we can have time to consider the overall interest of the country’s workforce.