The number of workers being retrenched in Malaysia these days is sharply on the rise, but the expected figure revealed by the Malaysian Employers Federation, MEF is downright scary.

The body estimated that as many as 200,000 workers from various factories throughout the country would find themselves jobless as the global economic downturn continues to hit hard.

Electrical and electronic will be the main 2 sub-sectors expected to be the biggest victims. Product demand is slow and orders have been non-existent since the turn of the year. The most sensible thing to do is – shutting down factories, either temporarily or permanently, and retrenching their workers.

Certainly, the year 2009 would not be a very good year as far as unemployment is concerned. It might even go as the worst year for the country’s economy.

Analysts are finding it too difficult to determine when the economy will return back to full swing, a stark sign of more bad things to come.

The 200,000 figure is even much higher than the total job loss suffered by the country during the Asian economic crisis some ten years ago, during which 85,000 people lost their jobs. The new number is an increase of more than 100%. On top of that, the downturn in the late 90s only affected Asian countries while the current one involves literally every part of the world.

Despite the unforgiving economic downturn, the Human Resource Minister of Malaysia, Datuk Dr S Subramaniam has come up with an assurance that the government does not intend to retrench its workers who are serving the public.

According to Subramaniam, both permanent and contract staff with the government are safe from lay off and mass termination.

In the recent weeks, the future of the government workers, especially some 50,000 of them who were hired on contractual basis has been put into question by the union of public servants, Cuepacs. The body anticipates that many of them will lose their jobs before the end of the year as the government would exercise some cost cutting strategy and reduce the number of workforce.

While his assurance comes a bit as a relief, Subramaniam may soon find himself having to eat his own words. In early November, Cuepacs alleged that 100 workers who were serving the public sector in Kelantan had their service terminated despite the Prime Minister’s assurance that the government will continue hiring and maintaining workers.