Anwar said data showed that more women aged between 25 and 29 years were leaving the workforce, with maternity commitments being one of the factors.

“As a progressive step forward, the government has agreed in principle to introduce a one-off allowance,” he said at the national Labour Day celebrations in Bukit Jalil here this morning.

The proposed allowance would be 80% of the employee’s current salary.

“Some 132,000 women are expected to benefit from this scheme,” he said.

Anwar also announced two other government initiatives.

He said the government will extend social security protection to Malaysians working overseas, including cross-border workers, noting that “a life is lost every week” involving these employees.

The Self Employment Social Security Act 2017 will need to be amended to expand protection for these cross-border workers starting with Malaysians who shuttle between the country and Singapore.

This initiative will benefit more than 480,000 workers.

The other initiative that Anwar announced is the Progressive Acceleration for Profitability and Employment (PACE) programme aimed at boosting human capital development and ensure the stability of the national labour market.

He said the Social Security Organisation (Perkeso) will allocate RM580 million for transformation and AI training, while HRD Corp will provide RM100 million to train workers.

Of the sum, RM20 million will be allocated to improve the protection scheme for e-hailing and p-hailing workers.

Deputy prime minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi and human resources minister R Ramanan were also present.