Door shuts on Foreign Workers Recruitment

What did the government do?

Earlier this month, the authorities in Malaysian has imposed a recruitment freeze on foreign workers and it would be enforced with immediate effect.

The announcement came a day after Malaysia's Human Resource Minister Richard Riot Jaem signed a contract with Bangladesh to bring in 1.5 million workers from the country in stages and it raised major concerns by groups for the safety and the impact on the local labour market. Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said that the freeze was to push more Malaysians to take up employment opportunities in sectors slated for foreign workers.

Interestingly, the government is now urging all employers to hire local workers as employees. Without giving out any further details of the plan, Ahmad Zahid said the suspension would be in place while the government reviewed the two-tier levy programme for foreign workers.

How many foreign workers are there? 

The number of documented foreign workers are 2.1 million. The estimated number of illegal foreign workers is about 1.7 million. They are largely employed in the manufacturing, plantation, construction and service sectors.