KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 21 — The work from home directive issued by Putrajaya yesterday only applies to those involved in the industrial and public sectors, Senior Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob explained today.

He said other sectors like the food, grocery stores and the security sector must continue to operate as usual.

"Confusion rose yesterday when we announced the work from home order. As I mentioned yesterday, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (Miti) will provide further details on this today.

"As we said, only those involved in public service and industries are told to work from home. As for the rest they can continue to operate as usual under the new norms,” said Ismail today during his security briefing.

The Public Service Agency put out a statement earlier today stating that only 30 per cent of their workforce will be allowed to work from the offices while the rest will work from home.

The onus will be on the respective departments heads to decide who will work from home and who must come into office without disrupting public service too much.

Ismail said Miti had also already released its statement today detailing which sectors are allowed to operate and who can’t, and he urged them to go to their official website for further details.

Miti said it will only allow a maximum of 10 per cent of workers covering accounting, finance, administration, law, planning and others to be in the office which will then be limited to only four hours from 10am to 2pm for three days a week.

"I only touched on this yesterday where I said that Industries under Miti and public service personnel are included in this policy. Other sectors are not included in this work from home order.

"Informal sectors like food, plantation, stalls, restaurants, food courts and grocery stores are all allowed to operate as usual under the new SOPs. So as I said other sectors like the security personnel like police and the army must continue to work as usual,” added Ismail.