Retrenched Malaysians won’t work for less

PETALING JAYA, May 21 — Low wages are the main factor for the government’s training programme for retrenched workers to be unattractive, according to the Malaysian Trades Union Congress (MTUC).

Its vice-president A. Balasubramaniam said those retrenched were mostly middle-aged with 10 to 15 years of experience and were already earning between RM2,000 and RM3,000 per month at the time of their retrenchment.

“So, if you ask this group to go for retraining and pay them RM500 or RM800 allowance, surely they will be reluctant,” he told Bernama today.

Balasubramaniam was commenting on the disappointment expressed by Human Resource Minister Datuk Dr S. Subramaniam over the poor response to the government’s initiative of providing training for retrenched workers.

The minister was reported to have said that only 1,000 of the 18,000 eligible workers had signed up for the various training programmes since they began two months ago.

Balasubramaniam said the poor response was also due to their financial commitments like paying their housing and vehicle loans and credit card debts.

The Malaysian Employers Federation (MEF) Executive Director Shamsuddin Bardan said the nature of the job was also an important consideration for the workers.

Most of the vacancies, he pointed out, were in the business process outsourcing (BPO) sector which required them to work odd hours to serve the world at large with different time zones.

“So, it is not surprising that retrenched workers who were used to working from 9am to 5pm find it difficult to adjust to a 11pm-7am shift,” he said.

Shamsuddin said another factor which impeded these workers was their cultural background where they had extended families and were reluctant to be relocated.

As an alternative, Shamsuddin proposed that the government set up a “retrenchment subsidy fund” to subsidise companies planning to retrench workers.

“The subsidy should be given directly to the company to allow it to subsidise the salary of its workers, thus preventing retrenchment,” he said.

“For example, in some countries the government gives a retrenchment subsidy of about 12 per cent of the worker’s salary to a maximum of RM3,500 for about a year.

“May be in Malaysia we can adjust this formula to suit our needs,” he said, adding that the most important thing was to prevent retrenchment in the first place, so that there would no necessity for re-employment or re-training.

Shamsuddin said part of the allocation for training could be utilised to set up the fund.

The government had allocated RM50 million for retraining of retrenched workers.

Meanwhile, L.C. Yong, the general manager of an employment agency here, agreed that Malaysian workers were reluctant to be relocated or change jobs if the salary did not commensurate with the responsibilities and skills.

According to him, Malaysian workers were adaptable and willing to do any job provided “the returns are attractive”.

“The bottom line for these workers is ringgit and sen,” he said. – Bernama