The Small and Medium Enterprises Association of Malaysia (Samenta) said it objected to the fee, and urged the human resource minister to direct HRDC to hold off on its imposition pending an explanation from its board on the rationale and necessity.

A June 15 circular from HRDC stipulated that it will start charging employers the fee for almost all training programmes conducted, purportedly to support the upskilling of their employees.

Samenta chairman William Ng said SMEs would only be able to train fewer employees if they had to fork out the additional RM300 per employee.

He described HRDC’s initiative as “counterproductive” as it “limited the employers’ rights in determining the training needed for their employees”.

“The minister, HRDC’s CEO and its board must explain how training fewer employees with the same money that rightfully belongs to the employers will help in upskilling more Malaysians,” he said in a statement.