The true figure may only be one third of that, said Rusli Affandi, secretary-general of the National Union of Hotel, Bar and Restaurant Workers Peninsular Malaysia.

MTUC president Abdul Halim Mansor had been quoted in a Bernama interview today that 10,000 hotel employees had been told to take unpaid leave and that more than 6,000 have had their pay cut.

But Rusli told FMT: “I don’t know where these figures are from, but they are not accurate. It’s very alarming. Putting these numbers out in public and letting people think this is what’s happening to hotels… It’s creating panic.

“I think maybe 10,000 have been laid off, and even then the figure is too high,” he said.

The MTUC was also quoted as saying it had received 186 complaints about dismissals in the hotel sector from March 18 to May 27. Rusli pointed out that the figure was much lower than the 30,000 supposedly laid off.

He said the hotel industry employed about 110,000 people across the country, but there is a lack of data surrounding how many have lost their jobs as a result of Covid-19.

The pandemic and the ensuing MCO enforced on March 18 has slashed demand for hotel rooms due to restrictions on both international and domestic travel, and there have been a string of shutdowns and lay-offs in the country’s hospitality industry.

Rusli said that although all hotels have been affected by Covid-19, he knew of only seven hotels in the country that have shut down permanently due to the pandemic.

Malaysian Association of Hotel Owners executive director Shaharuddin M Saaid recently told FMT that around 20 hotels in Kuala Lumpur have closed.

Rusli said that a far larger number would have had to close shop if 30,000 employees were really laid off. “If you say 30,000 have lost their jobs, it would mean around 100 hotels would have had to close,” Rusli pointed out.

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