Millions face job losses in Asia

Unemployment is expected to rise in Asia next year as the rest of the world reels from the impact of the global financial crisis.
Already, migrant jobseekers in China are facing uncertainties about their prospects while Indonesia estimates that about one million could lose their jobs in 2009 as many industries cut jobs due to weak revenues. In South Korea, public firms are also reducing jobs with at least 19,000 facing the ax.
A sense of uncertainty is growing among jobseekers in China faces a worsening employment situation, experts said last week.
"There is a strong sense of insecurity among migrant workers, college graduates and even white-collar workers amid the global financial crisis," Guo Weiqing, a professor of public administration at Guangzhou's Sun Yat-sen University, told China Daily.
Tens of thousands of migrant workers have lost their jobs in Guangdong province with the closure of factories hit by the crisis.
Eddy Widjanarko, chairman of the Indonesian Footwear Association (Aprisindo), said the industry would see nearly 10,000 layoffs by the end of 2008 and another 30,000 next year.
The government estimates about $65 billion will be needed in new infrastructure investment in the next three years.
In South Korea, the government said on Sunday it will cut 19,000 jobs at 69 public firms in the fourth stage of its public sector reform programme.
The Ministry of Strategy and Finance said the job cuts will be carried out gradually through a natural phasing-out process and voluntary retirement over three to four years, given the current grim economic situation and bleak job market.
"As we strive to improve public sector efficiency, 19,000, or more than 10 percent of jobs, will be reduced out of the 150,000 jobs (at 69 firms)," Vice Finance Minister Bae Kook-hwan told reporters in Gwacheon.
The ministry's restructuring programme came two days after President Lee Myung-bak on Friday called for a strong restructuring drive for both public and private sectors to ward off a worse economic situation.