PUTRAJAYA: Public sector employees who wish to work until 58 - the mandatory retirement age which comes into force from July 1 - will need to give advance notice to the government.

And the time to do this is when they are 56, the present retirement age.

Public Service Department director-general Tan Sri Ismail Adam said the extension of the retirement age would not be applied automatically as those employees who had reached 56 must agree to work for another two years.

He said under the law, civil servants must be given the option to decide whether they wanted to continue their services up to the mandatory retirement or take optional retirement.

"Under the Pensions Act, civil servants can go on optional retirement when they reach 40 (the first opportunity)," he said.
On the calculation of pension which would be based on a maximum of 30 years of service instead of the current 25 years, Ismail said this would benefit all pensioners.

"It is across the board, for all pensioners," he told reporters at the public sector's Workers' Day gathering at the Putrajaya International Convention Centre yesterday.

Ismail said the move would be greatly welcomed by those in the civil service as currently the maximum pension an employee of the sector could get was only up to 25 years of service.

On the derivative pension to the next-of-kin, Ismail said it covered both male and female employees.

On the move to give a lump sum ex-gratia payment to the parents of an employee who died with no other next-of-kin, he said this was a token of appreciation by the government.

On the government's decision to retain the Efficiency Level Assessment (PTK) for civil servants, Ismail said this was to remain until there was a better method of assessing the performance of employees in the public sector.