KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian Employers Federation (MEF) has urged the government to allow sectors dependent on foreign labour to continue hiring workers from overseas to drive the country's economic recovery.
MEF president Datuk Dr Syed Hussain Syed Husman advised the government not to mix local unemployment issues with sectoral issues, especially that involve 3D (dirty, dangerous and difficult) jobs.
"While employers are eager to regain business traction, they are very frustrated for not being able to engage the necessary workers as locals still shun the work that were performed by foreign workers.
"This is despite the fact that more than 500,000 Malaysians are currently unemployed.
"Malaysia's economic recovery efforts would be severely jeopardised if employers are not provided with the necessary workers to perform the work, especially in sectors that were still dependent on foreign workers.
"We must accept this reality and address it urgently for the sake of our economy," he said in a statement today.
Syed Hussain lamented that employers have exhausted all avenues to get the necessary workers including the recalibration programme, but their efforts have not yielded any results.
While foreign labour is a sensitive topic, he said the government must accept that not all industries can adopt IR 4.0 technology due to the nature of the production processes, such as in the furniture manufacturing industry.
Furthermore, he said, employers do recognise that foreign workers should be hired in blue collar jobs, while supervisory roles shoud be given to locals.
Red tape in hiring foreign workers, he said, must be reduced, including for domestic workers who are required to support employees to take care of children and their elderly parents as many resume working at offices.
"We understand that this issue cuts across a few ministries, but we hope that all parties work together to address and solve the shortage in foreign labour for selected sectors.
"In the long term, MEF hopes to work closely with the government on a workable and holistic system for the recruitment of foreign workers.
"For now, we must realise the issue is not (only) about foreign labour in selected industries, but is about the national economy (as a whole)," he said.
Nevertheless, Syed Hussain thanked Human Resources Minister Datuk Seri M. Saravanan for engaging with stakeholders on this matter.
"We also thank the minister for understanding the requests of employers and for working on the standard operating procedures (SOP) on vaccination, quarantine, flight, housing and swab test (of our workers)," he said.
Commenting on the forced labour issue, Syed Hussain said the majority of employers in the country are responsible people that took good care of their employees.
"But, we do not rule out there were isolated cases where irresponsible employers cause issues as far as the International Labour Organisation (ILO) was concerned.
"MEF condemns such irresponsible employers who were tarnishing our country's image.
"We even proposed that the government impose heavy penalties on such irresponsible and recalcitrant employers," he said.
Syed Hussain was also optimistic that the country's employment market will improve as businesses reopen, which will in turn attract more foreign direct investments and large multinational companies into the country.
