KUALA LUMPUR: Some 45,000 employees in the manufacturing sector will go on leave soon as most factories will shut down for the Chinese New Year celebrations.
Human Resources Minister Datuk Dr S. Subramaniam said factories would stop operations for two to three weeks and employers would ask the workers to take either paid or unpaid leave.
“This (shutdown) is because of a drop in demand. And so, the factories have to temporarily terminate their workers,” he told reporters after opening the Agro Explosion 2009 Seminar & Workshop yesterday.
He said that as of Jan 12, some 14,000 people had been retrenched. However, there were also some 15,000 vacancies in various sectors registered at the ministry.
On the National Union of Bank Employees and Malaysian Trade Union Congress opposing the Government’s plan to have a pension scheme for private sector employees through the Employees Provident Fund, Dr Subramaniam said it was due to a misunderstanding.
“The ministry is thinking about senior citizens who can no longer work and have used up their EPF money. We need a system to help them,” he said.
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