KUALA LUMPUR: The government has eased conditions for hiring foreign workers in five critical industries — manufacturing, construction, plantations, agriculture and food and beverage.
Human Resources Minister V. Sivakumar said employers in these sectors could apply to hire foreign workers through the ministry's Foreign Worker Centralised Management System (FWCMS).
"The Human Resources Ministry will process and approve applications within three working days. The requirement for job vacancy advertisements on the MyFutureJobs portal has been suspended with immediate effect.
"Employers who have applied through the FWe Approval and eQuota modules are urged to submit their applications again."
For further enquiries, contact the ministry's foreign workers management division at 03-8885 2939/2940.
Last week, Home Minister Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail said Putrajaya would come up with a plan to meet various sectors' need for foreign manpower.
He said the plan would allow employers to hire foreign workers from 15 source countries based on their capabilities and needs without having to fulfil quotas or employment pre-conditions.
He said the relaxed conditions were not permanent, but only a temporary measure to meet the country's economic and development needs, describing it as "unprecedented".