15,537 business closures since 2020, says govt
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MORE than 15,000 businesses closed between January 2020 till August 31 this year, said the Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs.
“In 2020, there were 10,487 businesses in the wholesale, trading and motor vehicle service sector that closed while there were 5,050 that closed this year (up to August 31),” said the ministry in a written reply to Dewan Rakyat yesterday.
There were 15,537 closures between January 2020 and August 31, 2021, compared to 13,527 closures in 2019.
The ministry said the number of winding-up petitions for limited-liability partnerships have almost doubled this year compared to 2019 and 2020.
“This year to August 31, there were 296 winding-up petitions compared to 162 in 2019 and 163 in 2020, respectively,” the ministry said.
“At least 27% or 80 of the petitions involved private limited companies in the wholesale, trading and motor vehicle service sector,” it added.
There were 984 winding-up petitions (based on the Companies Act) for the wholesale, trading and motor vehicle service sector in 2020.
“This year to August 31, there were 562 winding-up petitions for this sector,” it added.
There were 1,596 winding-up petitions in this sector in 2019, said the ministry in response to Rozman Isli’s (Labuan-PN) question on the number of business closures.
Meanwhile, in response to a question from Lim Kit Siang (Iskandar Puteri-PH), the Ministry of Human Resources said 43,924 Malaysians have lost their jobs this year.
According to Socso data, January and February were the worst months, with 8,334 and 6,296 people losing their jobs respectively.
The ministry also told Parliament that there were no prosecutions against any employers for wrongful dismissals this year.
“From 2020 till July 2021, 5,095 employers had terminated 141,191 employees in Peninsular Malaysia.
“In the same period, 509 employers terminated 8,996 workers in Sarawak with 355 employers terminated 5,706 workers in Sabah,” said the ministry.
The ministry was responding to a question from RSN Rayer (Jelutong-PH) about the number of employers who have terminated workers since the first MCO last year. – September 23, 2021.