A figure not as harrowing as in some o f the developed countries, but about 40,000 workers were retrenched last year as a result of the global economic crisis between 2008 and last year, said Deputy Human Resources Minister Senator Datuk Maznah Mazlan.
She was quoted in the media as saying that the Government had launched the E-Kasih programme to offer training courses to those who were unemployed so that they could look for other jobs in the market.
“We are monitoring the situation and Malaysia has fairly well compared with other countries that were hit by the economic crisis,” she told reporters after handing out seamstress certificates to 199 people at Yayasan Murni, Pengkalan Chepa yesterday.
Yayasan Murni has trained more than 21,000 people since it was set up five years ago and almost all of them had secured jobs.
