Jobseeker News in Brief (February 2009)

Labour Department offers to find new jobs

The Labour De partment will secure new jobs for the 45,000 workers given early Chinese New Year leave should the employers fail to extend their em ployment after the festive pe riod, reported The Star.

Human Resources Minister Datuk Dr S. Subramaniam said the department had a mechanism in place to assist these workers if they were laid off permanently.

However, he said the 122 companies involved had given an assurance that the workers would be employed again.

More than 45,000 workers comprising locals and foreigners from the 122 companies in the Klang Valley, Penang and Johor Baru would be temporarily laid off without pay for two to three weeks from the festive period.

Ministry to stop hiring foreigners

The Human Resources Ministry is pushing for a temporary freeze on the hiring of foreign workers, The News Starits Times said.

Minister Datuk Dr S. Subramaniam said a letter would be sent to the Home Ministry in view of the high retrenchment of workers following the global economic recession.

"We want industries to stop recruiting foreign workers and offer jobs to Malaysians instead."

Dr Subramaniam will meet Home Minister Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar soon to discuss the matter.

The cabinet had recently approved a special allocation of RM100 million for the Retrenchment Fund to retrain retrenched workers and another RM70 million to facilitate employment of retrenched employees and graduates seeking jobs.
Two special committees have been set up to manage the funds.

10,000 jobless so far since Jan 1

More than 10,000 Malaysians have lost their jobs since Jan 1, according to Malaysian Employers Federation (MEF) executive director Shamsuddin Bardan, the Star newspaper reported.

He said more were expected to lose their jobs in the days ahead as companies, particularly in the manufacturing sector, struggled to stay afloat.

In an urgent appeal to the Government, he said it was of utmost importance for the second economic stimulus package to be released fast so that companies could know clearly where they stood.

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(Source: Jobsdb Malaysia)