More than 200 garden workers in Phnom Penh protested at the Ministry of Public Works and Transport on Wednesday against a government decision to start laying off hundreds of the city’s maintenance staff. “By firing me, they have also affected my family’s standard of living, as they depend on me and I am also a widow,” said garden worker Chan Soy. The government plans to reduce the roughly 1,000 temporary workers who maintain the city’s gardens, drainage systems and roads by half, and 271 garden workers lost their jobs on Wednesday. Ministry spokesman Sam Samoth said the retrenchments were part of a government policy to reduce temporary staffing costs by 50 percent in departments nationwide.