KATHMANDU, Jan 14: In a first instance of the direct impact of the global financial crisis on Nepali overseas workers, a Malaysian manufacturing company has decided to lay off 73 Nepalis.
Akarshan International, a Nepali manpower agency working on behalf of the employer, applied at the Department of Foreign Employment last week, requesting it to take diplomatic initiatives to rescue the Nepali workers laid off by the manufacturing company, citing a slowdown in business.
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According to sources at the department, the department forwarded the application to the Ministry of Labor and Transport Management (MoLTM) on Thursday. The blue-collar Nepali workers had signed labor agreements on Jan 15, 2008 with the Johor-based Evergreen Heavy Industrial Corporation — a manufacturer of metal containers - to work as wielders, fitters and production operators. [break]
The company agreed to recruit them for three years for 855 ringgit (about Rs 20,000) a month in remuneration.
“This is the first time that we have received formal information about the layoff of Nepali overseas workers by an employer company on the back of the global financial meltdown,” said Tritha Khanal, assistant spokesperson at the ministry.
He said MoLTM was going to write to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for diplomatic initiatives through the Nepali embassy in Malaysia to rescue the workers.
In an application to the ministry, Akarshan International stated that its chairman Bishnu KC had gone to Malaysia last week in a bid to recruit the same workers for the local Lian Soon Engineering and Construction Company. But the manpower agency is now bringing the workers back to Nepal as they said they perferred to return home.
“First we tried to retain them in Malaysia with jobs at a new company. However, we are bringing them back on Jan. 22 as they showed interest in returning to Nepal,” Prem Bahadur Karki, managing director of Akarshan International, told myrepublica.com.
prabhakar@myrepublica.com
