THE decision of the Human Resources Ministry in prioritising the intake of domestic maids is appalling as Malaysia should be on a more strategic path to rebuild its ailing industries, Maria Chin Abdullah said. 

Citing the Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers, the Petaling Jaya Utara MP Maria said the country needs to replenish more than 600,000 foreign workers by this year to overcome the current acute manpower shortage, to bring businesses back to pre-epidemic levels. 

She said the electrical and electronics, food and beverage, chemicals and chemical products, fabricated metal and rubber products are among the top five manufacturing sub-sectors most affected by the shortage. 

“While it is ideal to expect these manual jobs to be taken up by locals, this is indeed not happening,” the PKR lawmaker said in a statement today. 

“This, too, reflects a mismatch between the market demand of workers and our graduates.  

“Besides wages offered being too low for workers, and yet, industries are reluctant to respond appropriately and the government has not played their part to mitigate this problem.”

Highlighting the struggles of the Petaling Jaya market traders, Maria said their attempts to recruit local workers failed and that such calls to look into the issue have fallen on deaf ears.

Malaysia has planned to recruit 10,000 domestic helpers from Indonesia. 

However, the project has hit a snag as the signing of the memorandum of understanding between the two countries, previously scheduled for February 7 and 8, has been postponed.

In order to address the issue, Maria said there are few things the government should focus on.

She said among others, the minimum wage needs to be reviewed to take into account the heavy economic impact on the workers. 

Maria called on the minimum wage to be increased to RM1,500. 

“The minimum wage of RM1,200 per month is now archaic, insufficient and creating a financial burden for workers. It should be raised to at least RM1,500 by this year and not later,” she said.

She urged the human resources, education and international trade and industry ministries to coordinate the content of technical and vocational education and training and the educational institutions to bring out more competitive and innovative workers who will be able to meet market demands, be it national or international.

She said the recruitment of foreign workers needs systematic and professional management between the human resources and home affairs ministries and other related ministries.

“Last year, the plantation and commodities minister randomly announced that her ministry was recruiting 50,000 foreign workers for the plantations. Today, we have the Human Resources Ministry making a similar announcement. It appears that there is no strategic foresight in human resource planning,” she said.

“Each ministry is working in isolation of each other and narrowly building its own portfolio.”

Maria said the Home Ministry has been most unsupportive on the issue of foreign workers and has built immigration barriers that deter the entry of such workers.

She said the ill-treatment of foreign workers and deporting them whenever the ministry decides, are just some of the unresolved issues.

Yet, when ministers announced the entry of foreign workers into their own industries, bureaucratic barriers seem to have come down, she said.

Maria said there must be consistency in the recruitment as well as control over inflow so as to also protect local workers.

She said haphazard immigration policies do not help the Malaysian economy.

She said Malaysia is not out of the woods in rebuilding its economy despite ministers claiming that it will recover soon. – February 12, 2022.