MoHR needs to explain foreign workers’ process failure
By Luqman Hakim – October 5, 2022 @ 1:19pm
KUALA LUMPUR: The Human Resources Ministry (MoHR) must explain its failure over the foreign worker intake process which had caused a labour shortage nationwide, said DAP chairman Lim Guan Eng
The Bagan member of parliament said worker shortages had caused companies, notably small and medium enterprises (SME), to either shut down or suffer huge losses.
The labour shortage had also impacted the positive growth trajectory of the country, said the former Finance Minister.
“Last month, the Malaysian Palm Oil Association estimated 47,000 foreign workers as having entered Malaysia or 12 per cent of 385,000 approvals by Human Resources Minister Datuk Seri M. Saravanan since January 2022 across all industry sectors.
“The association has stated that the palm oil industry needs 120,000 foreign workers while Malaysia’s electrical and electronics (E&E) sector needs 30,000 workers urgently.
“The severe worker shortage has incurred losses of RM33.5 billion to the plantation sector, glove and auto spare parts industry alone,” he said in a statement.
Lim said the existing numbers of foreign workers and the approved quota was irrelevant to the actuality of businesses suffering from a manpower shortage.
“The Human Resource Minister had recently announced approval for 541,315 foreign workers until Sept 26, of which 436,613 have already paid the levy.
“The ministry said that by taking into account the 1.3 million foreign workers in Malaysia and the approved quota of 541,315, the number has almost met the industry’s total demand of 1.8 million for foreign labour.
“However, the reality on the ground is that businesses lack manpower and even hawkers request customer self-service and fishmongers in the market are unable to clean or filet the fish for customers,” he said.
He also said contractors across the construction industry were disputing MoHR’s claim that the foreign labour shortage issue had been resolved.
“The Master Builders Association of Malaysia (MBAM) and nine construction associations said the ongoing shortage of foreign labour has hampered the recovery of the construction industry, noting that they faced higher interest rates.
“The 10 contractor associations urged Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob to intervene in reverting the foreign worker entry process to Construction Labour Exchange Centre Berhad (CLAB) without the involvement of the Human Resources Ministry to facilitate the entry of foreign workers immediately,” he said.
“We hope the ministry can explain why it has failed to deliver its promise on online processing, speeding up the employer interview process at One Stop Centres (OSCs) according to zones and states, or giving approvals within one week under the Foreign Workers Centralised Management system (FWCMS),” he said.
Source: https://www.nst.com.my/news/nation/2022/10/837426/mohr-needs-explain-foreign-workers-process-failure
