Nearly 65,000 lost jobs this year: Malaysia HR Minister

The Malaysian government has taken steps to help displaced workers find employment by introducing a hiring incentive and training assistance programme.
By: | July 27, 2020
Topics: Asia-Pacific | Job Cuts | Malaysia | News | Southeast Asia

A total of 64,495 workers across different sectors in Malaysia have lost their jobs since early this year, according to Human Resource Minister Datuk Seri M. Saravanan.

The figures released by the office of the Employment Insurance System (SIP) of the Social Security Organisation (Socso) were higher than the 55,000 that was reported by various employment agencies.

Saravanan added that the Malaysian government has taken steps to help displaced workers find employment by introducing the hiring incentive and training assistance programme or PenjanaKerjaya starting June 15.

“As of July 23, a total of 16,198 employers have registered under this incentive and out of that number, 2,240 employers have employed 6,928 employees,” he told a press conference after launching the PenjanaKerjana Carnival at Dewan Merdeka here on July 25..

“We also announced that there will be no new intake of foreign workers in all sectors until the year-end as locals will be given priority to fill up vacancies.”

Meanwhile, Malaysia’s unemployment rate rose to 5.3% in May, the highest figure it has seen since 1989 when it hit 5.7%, according to the Statistics Department.