Malaysia is one of Asia's biggest employers of foreign labour. But recently, cases of deaths, abuse and forced labour have come to light. What is going on? Who is protecting these migrant workers?
Consumers group advocate Jacob George also questioned if the government had
conducted a thorough study prior to introducing the ban.
<p>He was responding to a media report in Utusan Malaysia yesterday which quoted
deputy Human Resources Minister Abdul Rahman Bakar as saying that the freeze
was implemented to protect employment opportunities for local workers.</p>
<p>The deputy minister added that the government was also worried that the country
had become too dependant on foreign labour. He also raised concerns over the
600,000 undocumented migrant workers in the country.</p>
<p>George, who is the president of Consumers’ Association of Subang and Shah Alam,
Selangor (CASSA), said Abdul Rahman’s statement was inconsistent with the
present situation where there is a labour shortage of between 800,000 and 1
million workers in the country.</p>
<p>He also asked if the policy, as announced by Abdul Rahman, had been consulted
at the cabinet level.</p>
<p>“Was there a joint consultation with the Ministry of Agriculture or with
Ministry of International Trade and Industry?” he asked.</p>
<p>“A lot of companies are already bringing in foreign labour. They’ve
paid for the workers visas. They’ve invested in machinery that need these
workers to run it and are expected to start business operations soon with these
allocated staff,” he said, adding that the deputy minister’s statement
had caused anxiety among foreign investors also.</p>
<p><b>Labour gap</b></p>
<p>George also suggested that the government should give the 600,000 undocumented
migrants work permits so that they could be absorbed into the workforce.</p>
<p>“Otherwise, how do you fix the labour gap when this freeze on foreign
labour starts?” he said.</p>
<p>“If you see the 9th Malaysia Plan, you’ll see that many projects
are labour intensive. We need all the hands we can get to develop the various
sectors in this country,” he said.</p>
<p>George also said the labour shortage could not be alleviated by a local workforce
as they shunned the manual labour required in the construction, agricultural
and manufacturing sectors.
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