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.