Government spokesman Anucha Burapachaisri announced yesterday (Jan 26) that the Cabinet had approved to reduce the rate for paying contributions from February through March, reported state news agency NNT.
Under normal circumstances, contributions from employees covered under Section 33 of the Social Security Act (workers currently employed and paying into the fund) are capped at B750 a month based on a maximum salary of B15,000.
The new cap will be B75 a month for employees after the temporary deduction, explained the Bangkok Post.
The further deduction for employees came after the Cabinet last month approved cuts in the monthly contributions for both employees and employers to 3% from 5%, the Bangkok Post noted.
Also, people paying into the fund under Section 39 of the act (people no longer working but who keep paying into the fund) will pay only B38 instead of B278 per month.
Mr Anucha pointed out that the reduced Social Security Fund contributions would apply to 11,164,387 employees under Section 33, and 1,832,500 people under Section 39, as well as about 487,000 employers.
Hence, the Cabinet estimated that the contributions now not needed to be paid by workers would release B23.1bn to be injected into the economy, Mr Anucha said.
Thail-language daily Post Today noted that the latest SSO Fund reductions, when combined with the previous reductions during March to May and September to November last year, will total about B68.6bn in contributions not collected, thus being released into the national economy.