Denison Jayasooria, a sociologist and research fellow at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, said many in the B40 and among the urban poor were prone to being retrenched since they were unskilled workers, making it unlikely or impossible for them to be employed in jobs that could be done from home.
He was commenting on a Unicef survey of 500 households in Kuala Lumpur’s low-cost flats which found that unemployment had increased from 7% in September to 15% in December, with one in three adults in these households now without a job.
Jayasooria complained that Covid-19 appeared to be treated as more of a health and security issue.
He said the government must ramp up its retraining and reskilling efforts.
“Due to the prolonged movement control order and the restrictions, it is necessary for agencies to go to the ground to work with local groups,” he said.
He also said cash assistance given by the government was good only for the short term.
For the long term, he added, the government must strengthen neighbourhood and local community economies.
He said this called for a “whole of society approach” involving the government, non-governmental organisations and residents groups.
“The idea is for everyone to work together at a local level, address the issues of livelihood and take specific approaches depending on what is needed in a certain community, be it micro-business loans, retraining, upskilling or job placement programmes.”
Economist Carmelo Ferlito said Unicef’s survey indicated that the Covid-19 strategy was shaped by a “poor analysis” of the trade-offs between health and the economy.
“Now we have an idea of just how costly in terms of livelihoods these policies are,” he said. “And the results are debatable given that cases continue to rise.”
Ferlito, who heads the Center for Market Education, said the lockdown must end so that the economy could immediately restart.
“This is the only way we can preserve jobs and lives. In the longer term, social safety nets need to be redesigned and strengthened.”
He said the saving grace for many in the B40 had been the existence of delivery services, which had helped function as a safety net for those who would otherwise be unemployed or struggling to make ends meet.