Human Resources Minister M Saravanan has pulled the application process of recruitment of migrant workers from the brink of chaos by lifting the temporary freeze On August 19. The temporary freeze on applications to hire foreign workers was suspended for two weeks from August 15-31, the second time after the initial two weeks suspension on June 1-15.
According to Saravanan all the earlier applications to hire some 400,000 foreign workers will proceed before the end of this month. This U-turn by Saravanan confirms that the two-week suspension or temporary freeze would hinder efforts by all industries to overcome the 1.2 million worker shortage and inflicted losses of RM33.5 billion to the plantation sector, glove and auto spare parts industry alone. Other industries will also record losses of tens of billions of ringgit.
Saravanan should also look at how to help and not harm businesses, by improving current application procedures and conditions on hiring foreign workers to make it more transparent, decentralised via One Stop Centre approach and efficient. There is no time to lose when FMM had expressed fears that the two-week suspension would disrupt the current economic recovery by derailing the manpower planning of the industry, which will lead to their inability to fulfil their projects and orders.
According to the Malaysian Muslim Restaurant Owners Association (Presma), 1,500 Indian-Muslim restaurants, popularly called “mamak” restaurants, are expected to close nationwide following the lack of foreign workers and difficulty in sourcing local workers. PRESMA claims that the lack of foreign workers has already caused 3,000 restaurant operators out of 12,000 registered association members to be closed since the Covid-19 pandemic started more than two years ago. The mamak restaurant industry needs at least 30,000 more workers to fill vacancies across the country.
Many industries suffer the same predicament as the mamak restaurants. S. Saravanan should focus on cutting the red tape surrounding the many applications pending processing and approval, which has the industry seeking an efficient processing system for a quick turnaround on the applications.