Malaysia's unemployment aggravated by September attacks on U.S.

Malaysia's unemployment aggravated by September attacks on U.S.

Agence France-Presse, Kuala Lumpur

The worsening world economy and the Sept. 11 terror attacks on
the U.S. have caused tens of thousands of workers to lose their
jobs in Malaysia, Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi
said Saturday.

Abdullah in an interview with Bernama news agency said 34,502
workers have lost their jobs in the year to Nov. 17.

Of these 29,900 workers, or 86.7 percent, were Malaysians
while the rest were foreigners, he said. Last year's unemployment
data were not available.

"We hope employers will retrench foreign workers first. But if
we study the matter, we see other aspects. Maybe Malaysians do
not want to take up the jobs left by foreign workers," Abdullah
said.

Foreign workers are mainly found in the services and
plantation sectors, whose poor wages and tough working conditions
are often shunned by Malaysians.

Abdullah said the job losses could be explained by a fall in
demand for products, which had led to the shutting-down or
relocation of factories.

Labor Department statistics obtained by Bernama show three-
quarters of the jobs were lost in manufacturing with trade and
finance showing the next biggest losses.

Most of the losses were in Penang, Johor and Selangor, where
Malaysia's export-dependent information technology industries are
based, Bernama said.

The central bank last week announced an economic contraction
of 1.3 percent in the third quarter, the first year-on-year drop
since the first quarter of 1999, amid sharp falls in
manufacturing output.

Malaysia last plunged into recession in 1998 amid the Asian
financial crisis, but it rebounded the following year and
recorded a heady 8.5 percent growth last year.

The government has cut its growth forecast for this year for a
second time to between 1.0 to 2.0 percent, and has imposed a
range of fiscal measures to boost consumer spending.