PETALING JAYA: The government's move to restrict foreign workers to only three sectors – construction, agriculture and plantation – will devastate the operations of industries in other sectors which are trying very hard to recover from the Movement Control Order (MCO).
Of the two million registered foreign workers in Malaysia, less than 42 per cent (837,800) are employed in the construction, agriculture and plantation sectors; while the rest are employed in manufacturing (about 700,000), services (about 309,000) and domestic work (about 130,000), said the Malaysian Employers Federation (MEF)
"Obviously, sectors that are denied foreign workers will be faced with acute shortage of manpower (which will) cause major disruptions to their operations," said MEF executive director Datuk Shamsuddin Bardan.
He said it is most unfortunate that the government did not discuss the matter with stakeholders on such a major policy shift prior to the announcement in Parliament.
Shamsuddin said the major question the government has to answer is whether locals who are unemployed are willing to take up the jobs once foreign workers are repatriated.
"Everybody knows that foreign workers are only allowed to be recruited once employers have proven that there were no local workers available to fill up the vacancies", he said here, today.
Shamsuddin said phasing out of foreign workers may be possible if done in stages, and if it can be shown that locals are prepared to fill up the positions currently occupied by foreign workers.
"But it's impossible to expect local workers to take up the positions vacated by foreign workers overnight," said Shamsuddin in a statement.
On Wednesday, Deputy Human Resources Minister Tuan Awang Hashim told the Dewan Rakyat that the government had decided to allow foreign workers to work in the construction, agricultural and plantation sectors; while jobs in other sectors are to be filled by local workers.
https://www.nst.com.my/news/nation/2020/07/612751/restricting-foreign-worker-employment-will-ruin-manufacturing-services
drobertp40
Malaysia need to grow up - be a developed nation, not dependant on almost slave like cheap labour and expect Malaysians of whom almost all have gone till form 5 level education to replace that kind of cheap labour. Need to focus on use of techs to do routine not so much thinking jobs. For heavy labour intensive jobs like in palm oil fields and glove manufacturing, tech must be developed to help worker to do more than 1 person job and pay them more than one person salary rather than enticing them with overtime. Necessity is the mother of invention and innovation - giving in to bringing cheap labour fro overseas will kill it.
2020-07-30 14:21