KUALA LUMPUR: The falling value of the ringgit has driven foreign workers to seek greener pastures elsewhere instead of Malaysia, said Deputy Home Minister Datuk Nur Jazlan Mohamed.
He said foreign workers are also turning away from Malaysia as local employers are not giving them good treatment.
“The number of foreign workers from Nepal, Philippines and Indonesia coming to Malaysia has dropped as they can find jobs elsewhere with better remuneration.
“But the problem is, local employers still depend on foreign workers even in sectors which are high-technology.
“Employers are reluctant to upgrade their business process to lessen dependency on foreign labour and this leads to unhealthy activities such as mistreatment by manpower agents on foreign workers,” he said in Dewan Rakyat today.
He said they refused to take care of the foreign workers' welfare and passed the responsibility to agents that supply the manpower, who are more often than not illegal immigrants.
He cautioned that as long as these agents are around, the number of illegal immigrants will remain high.
Nur Jazlan was responding to a question by Anuar Abd Manap (BN-Sekijang) who asked the ministry to state the latest status of the government's rehiring and resettlement programme for Foreign Workers Without Permit (PATI) and the ratio of foreign to local workers set by the government.
Under the rehiring programme which came into effect in March following a decision by the Cabinet to freeze the recruitment of new foreign workers, employers could only recruit existing foreigners, whose working visas had expired, or those who are here working without valid documents.
Nur Jazlan said the ministry will the allow the recruitment of new foreign workers to resume once the number of illegal immigrants in the country can be ascertained through the rehiring programme.
The ministry will also reconsider extending the deadline for the rehiring programme, scheduled to end on June 30, if needed.
He also said employers generally maintained a ratio of 20:80 in foreign and local workers, although it varies by sectors.
As of March 31, the number of registered foreign workers in Malaysia stood at 1.99 million.
Earlier this month, exemption was granted to four sectors - construction, manufacturing, plantation and furniture - as the freeze had affected employers, with about 80 per cent of them affected.