In a statement, party secretary-general Lim Guan Eng said the opposition MPs wanted the vaccination of the 16.5 million Malaysian workforce to be accelerated to help generate a quick economic recovery.
“For the sake of our 16.5 million Malaysian workforce, DAP is willing to put aside our political differences with the Perikatan Nasional (PN) government to work together to defeat Covid-19, supporting the vaccination programme, protecting existing jobs and creating new jobs.
“The failure of the PN government to manage and control the surge of the third wave of Covid-19 infections has made Malaysia the worst nation in Asia-Pacific in per capita terms,” Lim said.
The Bagan MP said the severity of the third wave of infections had hampered economic recovery and caused unemployment to increase to 4.8%, or 778,000, in February 2021, with youth unemployment at 13.9% (348,000), the highest in decades.
The former finance minister also lamented the PN ministers’ appeal to young graduates to accept low-wage jobs.
“What is distressing is that two PN ministers, namely human resources minister M Saravanan and economics affairs minister Mustapa Mohamad, are publicly urging undergraduates unable to find jobs to accept monthly pay of RM1,000.
“The two PN ministers say that having a salary below the monthly minimum wage of RM1,200 set by the PH government is better than having no job at all.
“Paying below the monthly minimum wage is illegal and can be punished with an RM10,000 fine. Instead of taking action, the two ministers are encouraging such illegal payments.
“This betrayal of workers’ rights must be condemned. The two PN ministers should publicly apologise and atone for their failures by taking concrete steps to uphold the minimum wage.”
Lim urged the government to fulfil its promise to provide an automatic loan moratorium and implement the RM6.5 billion Malaysia@Work programme, creating 350,000 jobs announced during the 2020 budget by the previous Pakatan Harapan government.
Under Malaysia@Work, Malaysian workers, who were previously unemployed, will get a monthly wage incentive of RM500 while employers will receive monthly hiring incentives of RM300 for a period of two years.