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PETALING JAYA: Employers are looking forward to the end of the foreign labour crunch following instructions by the prime minister for the relevant ministries to speed up workers’ approvals.
SME Association of Malaysia president Ding Hong Sing said the directive by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim for the Human Resources and Home Ministries to expedite the entry approvals of foreign workers, especially in the agriculture, service and construction sectors, is hoped to solve the long-standing foreign worker shortage issue.
Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are currently having a shortfall of between 400,000 and 500,000 foreign workers to work in the manufacturing as well as the food and beverage industries, he said.
“I hope this will not be like a roti paratha situation where the government just keeps spinning and spinning.
“With the Prime Minister’s instructions to expedite the foreign worker approval process, I hope this can help the SMEs,” he said.
Malaysian Indian Muslim Restaurant Owners Association (Presma) president Datuk Jawahar Ali Taib Khan also welcomed Anwar’s approach in light of the shortage of about 20,000 foreign workers at mamak eateries and Indian restaurants nationwide.
“The labour shortage has been dragging on for too long, not only in the plantation and agriculture sector. The service sector is also feeling the burn,” he said.
The service sector consists of sub-sectors such as spa, warehouse, restaurant, cleaning, metal, scrap materials and recycling, barbers, goldsmith, dhobi, textiles and resorts.
“We have also sent letters to the Human Resources and Home Ministries to seek a meeting with the new ministers to explain the situation. We are still waiting for a response from them,” he said when contacted yesterday.Jawahar said while the economy was recovering following the pandemic, manpower shortage should be addressed immediately and red tape reduced to drive a more rapid economic recovery.
Malaysian Maid Employers’ Association (Mama) president Engku Ahmad Fauzi Engku Muhsein said while it was a productive directive by the Prime Minister, he hoped that the process of procuring foreign domestic workers would also be in the fast lane.
“This will ease the burden of waiting and urgency by employers in this sector nationwide,” he said.
Engku Ahmad Fauzi also called on the government to emulate how other countries resolved similar challenges in terms of the long-standing issue of foreign worker shortage.
“The government should also expedite the memorandum of understanding on foreign domestic workers with many more source countries,” he said.
Meanwhile, National Association of Human Resources Malaysia (Pusma) president Zarina Ismail urged the Prime Minister to relook at the roles of both ministries in the recruitment process of foreign workers.
She said foreign worker approval and management must solely fall under the Human Resources Ministry if the government was serious about expediting the process.
She said the welfare of workers came under the purview of the Human Resources Ministry and not the Home Ministry, which should be responsible for national security matters such as background checks on foreign workers and arresting all illegal workers without compromising.
“It takes too long when both ministries are involved in the process because there is a lot of back and forth between departments just to approve one application.
“When I applied to hire a domestic worker for my home in Singapore, it took me only two hours to get the approval. Imagine that happening here,” she said.
Source: https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2022/12/22/hope-on-the-horizon-for-an-end-to-labour-crunch