EMPLOYERS CAN APPLY TO LET GO FOREIGN WORKERS EARLY

LANGKAWI (Malaysia), Feb 4 (Bernama) -- Companies with foreign workers and are facing the economic crunch can now apply to let go these workers even if their service contracts have yet to expire, said Human Resource Minister Dr S. Subramaniam.

"I have discussed this with Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak and it is to
help companies that are affected by the economic downturn," he told reporters
after opening a hospitality course organised by the Manpower Department here
Tuesday.

He said, besides this, companies that retrenched foreign workers could also
reclaim any balance on levies already paid to the government.

Prior to this, companies were having difficulty retrenching foreign workers
because they had to honour the contracts with their foreign workers while the
foreign worker levy had to be paid on an annual basis.

Subramaniam said so far this year, his ministry had received applications
from companies to retrench 9,000 workers of whom 6,000 were foreign workers.

He said till Jan 31, a total of 15,000 workers were retrenched nationwide
with most of them in the manufacturing sector.

He added that to address the problem of lay offs, his ministry had
introduced re-training programmes for workers with the government absorbing the
costs.

He said this was better than having employees asked to go on extended leave
because of the slowdown.

Some 95 people are attending the four-month hospitality courses aimed at
improving service standards in the hotel and tourism industry.

-- BERNAMA