KUALA LUMPUR, May 25 — Genting Malaysia Bhd (GENM) announced today it will undertake mutual and voluntary separation schemes for its employees to further mitigate the adverse financial impact from the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.

In an internal memo circulated to its employees sighted by Malay Mail, Genting Malaysia Bhd senior vice-president of human resources Quan Cher Siong said the company had to assess and recalibrate its cost structure, including staffing needs, based on both current and anticipated future operating capacity.

Therefore, Quan said the company had to make the very difficult decision to restructure its Malaysian operations and rightsize the workforce.

The restructuring exercise would also mean retrenching surplus labour, offering voluntary separation and mutual separation schemes, Quan said.

"During this prolonged closure, our company continues to incur significant losses and the outlook remains uncertain as the pandemic evolves resulting in lower personal disposable income, change in customer behaviour, restrictions on mass gatherings, social distancing requirements and strict operating protocols to protect our customers and employees.

"For these reasons, we foresee our business recovery to be very challenging,” he said in the memo.

Besides Resorts World Genting (RWG), Genting Malaysia owns and operates Resorts World Awana, Resorts World Kijal and Resorts World Langkawi.

For the first time in its 55-year history, RWG has been closed since March 18 this year pursuant to the movement control order (MCO) issued by the government.

Last week, Genting Malaysia said it suffered a net loss of RM417.96 million in the first quarter of 2020 due to the temporary disruptions in its worldwide operations from the pandemic.

Subsequently, GENM management team then announced it will be taking a 20 per cent pay cut in accordance with austerity measures introduced amid the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.

Quan pointed out that the tourism, leisure, hospitality and gaming industries were the hardest hit by the worldwide pandemic, with RWG adversely impacted by the unprecedented challenges posed by these difficult times.

"When business operations resume, we will face challenges to regain the level of business our company saw prior to the pandemic,” he said.

Quan said employees affected by this decision will be subsequently notified and assistance extended to them accordingly to help them prepare for a career change.