The Malaysian working class is in for tough times ahead, with companies expected to lay off personnel to brace for a shrinking economy, says online recruitment platform Monster.com.

Worse still, the latest Monster Employment Index (MEI) shows recruitment activities declining – with almost all sectors experiencing a drop.

“Malaysia’s labour market is expected to remain weak, as companies slow down their hirings and increase the numbers of lay-offs,” said Sanjay Modi, managing director of Monster.com (India, Middle East, Southeast Asia, Hong Kong), in a statement.

The MEI for the month of October this year shows that recruitments across various online platforms plunged 24 percent across the board, compared with the same month last year.

Worst hit are those in the telecommunciations sector, with demand for software, hardware and telecom professionals almost halved compared with October last year.

Hardly any sector registered growth in e-recruitment activities, the index showed, with the oil and gas sector suffering the worst decline in four months.

E-recruitment activities for the oil and gas sector shrunk by 29 percent year-on-year, the index found.

The only sector that experienced growth was communications and marketing, which registered a modest one percent growth, year-on-year.

“The oil and gas industry may also cut down on job demand. This in partly due to the decline of oil prices, which has already resulted in many local and foreign oil and gas companies reducing their employee head counts over the last six months, because of the slow revenue growth.

“The banking, financial services and insurance sector is also likely to face retrenchments this year,” Sanjay said.