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March 09, 2009
Retrenching foreign workers, get back levy in a month-Malaysia
In Japan the actual employment rate for general private companies as of 1 June 2008 was 1.59, a rise of 0.04 percentage points above the previous year, but it has still not reached the level of 1.8% stated by the Law for Employment Promotion etc., of the Disabled.
The following is one of the measures of Malaysian government to promote employment of persons with disabilities. It was downloaded from the mailing list of "Disability and Development" with a cooperation of the publisher, Mr. Soya Mori.
PEKAN: The government is dangling millions of ringgit to employers to retrench foreign workers and hire locals instead. Human Resources Minister Datuk Dr S. Subramaniam said in Pekan, Pahang that employers who retrenched their foreign workers would get the balance of the levies that they had paid for the workers within a month, compared with up to two years previously.
"This is some sort of an incentive to the employers to lay off their foreign workers and take in locals," he said.
He said there had been encouraging response from employers. It was reported that the Immigration Department collected about RM2 billion in levies from foreign workers annually. Subramaniam said his ministry would work with the Home Ministry to expedite the reimbursement of the annual levy, which is between RM1,200 and RM1,800 for each foreign worker. He could not give an estimate of how much money would be returned to employers but 6,000 of the 15,000 workers retrenched so far, due to the economic downturn, were foreigners. Subramaniam said the quick return of money to employers would help them use it for other purposes.
He also urged companies affected by the economic slowdown to send their workers for training under the ministry's programme.
"They should utilise this programme rather than retrench their workers.
" It will help employers reduce cost," he said, adding that the government would pay a monthly allowance to the workers.
He said this after presenting business grants to handicapped entrepreneurs in Pekan yesterday.
Subramaniam also presented a certificate to Vacuumschmelze (M) Sdn Bhd managing director Karl Heinz Michmann for the company's continuous effort to employ the handicapped. On handicapped workers, he said a special rehabilitation and vocational training centre for them would be opened in Malacca by June next year. He said it was important to train more handicapped workers as the one per cent quota allocated for them in the public and private sectors had yet to be achieved.
http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/Friday/National/2478505/Article/index_html
Posted by jicafriends at March 9, 2009 04:55 PM