What are the Paid Leave You Have As An Employee In Malaysia?

The employment legislation in Malaysia provides paid leave entitlement only to those who earn below a certain income level or are involved in manual labor. At the same time, all other non-manual workers with higher incomes should rely solely on the terms of their employment contract.

The definition of employees under the Employment Act 1955 of Malaysia includes those who are employed as manual labor workers, notwithstanding their salary level as well as non-manual workers whose monthly income doesn’t exceed RM2,000. The Act provides several types of paid leave entitlements, including holiday leave, annual leave, sick leave, and maternity leave, as well as other optional leaves.

Other employees whose income exceeds the above threshold should rely exclusively on the terms of their labor agreements. For this reason, knowledge of regulations for leave entitlement in Malaysia becomes even more critical for signing any employment contract to make its terms at least equivalent or even better than those provided by the law.

Types of Paid Leave

The Employment Act of 1955 provides several types of paid leave entitlements, which include:

public holidays,
annual leave,
sick leave,
maternity leave

In addition, those employees who have exhausted other forms of leave and still need to be absent from work due to personal matters can ask their employers for an opportunity to take unpaid leave, which can be granted solely on the employer’s discretion.

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Public Holiday

Employees are entitled to paid leave on the following days:

1. Eleven of the gazetted public holidays, five of which are:

National Day
The birthday of the Yang di-Pertuan Agong
The Birthday of the Ruler or the Yang di-Pertua Negeri (based on the state the employee works in)
Workers’ Day
Malaysia Day.

2. On any day appointed as a public holiday under Section 8 of the Holidays Act 1951 which refers to any other day that can be observed as a public holiday as the leader of the state sees fit after consultation with the State Authority. An example would be public holidays for victories in major sports events (badminton, hockey, football, etc.).

However, quite a number of employers did not observe this as a public holiday due to operational requirements or urgencies. As such, employers can require their employees to work on that day but they will have to grant their employees any other day as a paid public holiday in substitution, in line with the Holiday Act 1951.

If a public holiday falls on a rest day and the following day is a working day, then that day shall be a paid holiday substitution. For example, if a public holiday falls on a Sunday, Monday shall automatically be a public holiday too.

Annual Leave

As an employee, you are entitled to a certain number of annual paid leave days in addition to your rest days and paid holidays! According to Section 60E(1) of the Employment Act 1955, you are entitled to annual paid leave as stated below:

(a) eight days for every twelve months of continuous service with the same employer if he has been employed by that employer for a period of less than two years;

(b) twelve days for every twelve months of continuous service with the same employer if he has been employed by that employer for a period of two years or more but less than five years; and

(c ) sixteen days for every twelve months of continuous service with the same employer if he has been employed by that employer for a period of five years or more.

So, you must have been working for at least 12 months with the same employer in order to become entitled to annual leaves. On the other hand, if you’ve just joined the company and thinking about leaving the employment before completing 12 months of continuous service, your number of leave days will be pro-rated according to the number of months you’ve been working with the company.

However, if you’re absent from work without your employer’s permission or a reasonable excuse for more than 10% of the working year, you’ll not be entitled to annual paid leave.

Sick Leave

An employee, after examination at the expense of the employer;

– by a registered medical practitioner appointed by the employer (panel clinics); or
– If there are no designated panel clinics or the services of the appointed medical practitioner is not obtainable, taking into consideration the nature and circumstances of the illness, the employee can be examined by any other registered medical practitioners or medical officers.

Following which, if the illness does not require hospitalisation, the employee is entitled to sick leave days as follows:

14 days every year if the employee has been employed for less than two years.
18 days every year if the employee has been employed for two years or more but less than five years.
22 days every year if the employee has been employed for five years or more.

However, if the illness requires hospitalisation, a total number of 60 days will be provided for each employee. This is inclusive of the paid leave entitled as stated above.

Maternity Leave

The law also provides paid leave entitlements to women in connection with pregnancy. According to the Employment Act 1955, a female employee involved in the private sector has been entitled to a total of 60 consecutive days of maternity leave while public sector employees were entitled to 90 days.

The changes to these regulations were proposed during the approval of Budget 2020, which presumed the same duration of maternity leave for both private- and public- sector employees.

Following the approval, the Human Resources Ministry of Malaysia has announced that it will take measures against those employers who are not following the updated regulations, although the new rules are to take effect only in 2021.