Malaysia Finance Ministry: Over 6,170 workers laid off this year

The Ministry of Finance (MoF) revealed on 26 October that a total of 6,170 workers had lost their jobs in government-linked companies (GLCs) this year. Malaysian Airline System Bhd (MAS) tops the list, retrenching 4,682 employees while the airline’s new entity, Malaysia Airlines Bhd (MAB), had laid-off two people.

According to a statement from the parliament seen by Malay Mail Online, “under the G20 group, there are five GLCs which have stopped or have not extended the working of contracts of 5,134 workers.

The written parliamentary reply was in response to Segambut MP Lim Lip Eng from the DAP who asked the government to state how many people were retrenched from GLCs this year.

The ministry said the retrenchments involved five of the top 20 GLCs that have been dubbed the G20 group and two companies were directly under the Finance Ministry Incorporated (MKD).

As for the two companies under MKD, MoF reported in The Edge Markets that “Petronas has laid off 1,000 people, while Bank Pertanian Malaysia Bhd (Agrobank) has terminated 36 people.”

Prime Minister Najib Razak, who is also the country's finance minister mentioned that there are various factors behind the terminations, such as “cessation of operations, entities consolidations and adjustments made to adapt to the [prevailing] business environment.”

Regardless, MoF highlighted that these companies have ensured every employee involved are offered fair compensation based on their respective collective agreements.

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