NUMBER OF WORKERS RETRENCHED

Mr Chuang Shaw Peng asked the Minister for Manpower if he will indicate the number of employees retrenched from October 1997 up to the latest convenient date by (i) multi-national corporations and (ii) local enterprises.

Dr Lee Boon Yang: Around 11,000 workers were retrenched from October 1997 to March 1998 by private sector establishments with at least 25 employees. Majority (77%) of the retrenched workers were from manufacturing, mainly the electronics (53%), electrical (6.9%) and petroleum and chemical (4.7%) products industry. The services sector accounted for 22% of the total retrenchment mainly in wholesale and retail trade (9.3%), real estate and business services (3.3%) and financial institutions (3.2%).

Among the retrenchments that were notified to the Ministry's Labour Relations Department, roughly 46% of the retrenched workers were from foreign-owned companies. The remaining 54% were from local enterprises.