Malaysian economy has buffers
By V.P. SUJATA and LESTER KONG
PUTRAJAYA: Malaysia’s economy has the capacity to weather the destabilising consequences of developments in the US economy and international financial markets, said Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak.Stating that the country’s economic fundamentals were strong, he added that Malaysia’s international reserves were high at US$119bil with a large current account surplus.
(yeah, mebbe we can use the reserves to give out welfare payments to unemployed Malaysians to feed their families eh?...)
Prepare to lose jobs in Singapore
Tuesday October 14, 2008
By NELSON BENJAMIN
SINGAPORE: The 300,000 Malaysians employed in the island republic have been advised to gear up for retrenchment if the country continues to slide into a recession.
Human Resources Minister Datuk Dr S. Subramaniam said that although the technical recession experienced by Singapore has not yet translated into unemployment, it was better for Malaysians to be prepared.
“If there is unemployment due to a recession, our workers will be hit,” he told The Star here yesterday.
“They need to work on retraining and acquiring new skills to ensure they have jobs during such times.”
He said that Malaysians accounted for about 30% of the foreign workforce in Singapore.
Dr Subramaniam said that many of the Malaysian workers in Singapore were unskilled and employed in the manufacturing sector.
Asked about whether the ministry had a contingency plan for such a situation in Malaysia, he said that Malaysia would have excess job vacancies as work presently being done by foreigners could be offered to locals instead.
According to economic data released by Singapore’s Ministry of Trade and Industry, the island republic will be the first Asian economy to fall into a technical recession.
A technical recession is generally defined as two consecutive quarters of contraction in economic output.
Dr Subramaniam, after an hour-long meeting with his Singapore counterpart Gan Kim Yong, said they had discussed various issues.
On instances of Malaysian workers being cheated in Singapore, he said that the Malaysian High Commission had received 1,250 complaints within the first nine months of this year.
Dr Subramaniam added that there was something wrong with the recruitment mechanism and the ministry would have to check on the matter.
4 comments:
Salam MT,
Its sad. But in a way, it serves us - those high nose Malaysians who look down on foreign workers in Malaysia - right! Still, to give dole to the unemployed is not quite right either. The long term cure - though certain quarter may not agree - is to replace the clowns and monkeys at the helm with real people with real capabilities and not one who inherit his worthless lordship over a serfdom which is not his in the first place. Hmm...apologies if I'm too vocal :)
The dole thingy was ajoke meh..hehehe
Ya, we need real people with real capabilities. not dumb ass politicans.
Vocal enuf?
MT,
Hehe, I knew you were joking about the dole thingy. But gosh, my tone must have really sounded serious eh? Isk isk isk :)
yeah...never know what is a joke nowadays...heheh...politicians sound dopey and funny and we sound seriously worried? heheh
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