Focus on protecting jobs, households, says Khazanah Research

Enhancing employment retention is crucial to ensure that households do not suffer irreversible livelihood losses due to short-term shocks and help them bounce back faster to productive life when the crisis is over, he stressed.

KUALA LUMPUR: The second-round of economic package to cushion the impact of Covid-19 on the country should have a slight change of strategy from "stimulating" the economy to "protecting" the productive potential as both the health and economic crises worsen, said Khazanah Research Institute (KRI).

It said the central tenets of this protection strategy should focus on a massive employment-retention programme to ensure households have enough resources to ride out the pandemic in the next few months as firms take cost-cutting measures.