Published February 4, 2009

Firms can fire foreign workers still on contract: KL

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(KUALA LUMPUR) Companies employing foreign workers and facing the economic crunch can now apply to let go of these workers even if their service contracts have yet to expire, Malaysian Human Resource Minister Subramaniam said yesterday.

'I have discussed this with Deputy Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak and it is to help companies that are affected by the economic downturn,' Mr Subramaniam told reporters after opening a hospitality course organised by the Manpower Department in Langkawi, northern Kedah state.

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

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

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

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

To address the problem of layoffs, his ministry had introduced re-training programmes for workers with the government absorbing the costs, he added.

This was better than having employees asked to go on extended leave because of the slowdown, Mr Subramaniam said. -- Xinhua