He said the forgeries were detected when the companies applied for wage subsidies totalling RM31 million for 14,800 workers.

He added that his ministry also received complaints that 89 employers who received wage subsidies totalling RM670,000 had yet to pay their workers.

“They (those who had forged documents) will be blacklisted and now we are probing the employers so we can take legal action,” he said after officiating the Human Resources Development Fund (HRDF) initiative under the Penjana economic stimulus package in Johor today.

The wage subsidy programme was introduced under the Prihatin economic stimulus package announced by Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin last March.

In other developments, Saravanan said his ministry estimated that unemployment would decrease from 4.7% in July to 4.5% by the end of the year.

“This can be seen through HRDF, which has already received 9,000 applications as of today. The approval process will be done in stages,” he said.