PETALING JAYA: With the current shortage of maids, more people going back to their workplaces and Malaysians fast becoming an ageing society, there has been a boom in mobile applications offering home care services.
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Older workers may be more likely to be subject to age discrimination during the pandemic. Filepic/The Star
WHILE most of those affected by unemployment during the Covid-19 crisis were youths, the biggest increase in unemployment percentage has come from the older age groups.
Tabulating data from the Statistics Department (Dosm), Chai Sen Tyng, a Senior Research Officer at Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM)’s Malaysian Research Institute on Ageing found that while the unemployment rate is the highest (12.6% at Q3 2020) for the 15-24 age group, the biggest change in unemployment rate between Q4,2019 and Q3,2020 is the 55-64 age group, where unemployment jumped from 0.6% to 4.2%.
Helping hand: The government has introduced various initiatives to help ease the concerns of older workers.
THE National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme is expected to put Malaysia’s economy back on the right track, and with it a boost to the country’s employment market. This is good news for those laid off during the Covid-19 pandemic, particularly older workers from the B40 or lower-income groups. While the youth are most affected by Covid-19 job losses, retrenched workers aged 45 and above within the B40 group are also facing exceptional challenges remaining in and re-entering the workforce.
High competition
This past one year has been particularly tough for the global economy beset with Covid-19 and compounding effects of the pandemic.
PETALING JAYA: Senior citizens and caregivers at long-term care homes are urged to get vaccinated against Covid-19, as they live in a high-risk setting for transmission of the virus in these facilities, say health experts.
Dr Jacqueline Lo Ying-Ru, head of mission and WHO representative to Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore, said senior citizens are vulnerable and are at high risk of being critically ill, as they also suffer from existing medical conditions and comorbidities, which result in higher rates of deaths.
As such, Dr Lo said infection prevention control measures remain of critical importance to avoid the introduction of the virus among residents at the senior citizen care facilities.