Can The Employer Refuse to Pay Overtime?

You submitted your overtime claim, and it was rejected. Now, you wonder if your employer has the right to deny your overtime pay. Let’s take a look if this is true.

Overtime is one of the most sought-after salary components in Malaysia. Employees who are earning less than RM4000 a month are entitled to overtime pay. This is mandated by law.

Those employees who work in operations or blue-collar jobs depend on overtime to supplement their monthly basic salary. In fact, the financial commitments around them depend on the money they make through OT.

So, it is very frustrating when your overtime claim gets rejected or doesn’t get paid. Employers who do this commits an offence under labor is liable to be fined.

However, overtime is only considered valid when the employer requests the employee to work beyond the normal working hours. So, the request must come from the employer and the employee must agree to it.

Also, overtime is involved when the workload is additional to the normal workload of the employee.

So, if the employee just stays back to complete the normal task that could not be completed during work hours and did not get any permission from the manager to treat those hours as OT, then the Company has the right to deny the overtime claim.

Hope you understand this!