Human Resources Minister S. Saravanan’s disappointing display of ignorance and incompetence in the deplorable processing for the recruitment of foreign workers will ultimately cost Malaysian industries tens of billions of ringgit. As many as 1,000 employers were reported to be upset after being turned away from the human resources ministry yesterday, when they were unable to be interviewed for their foreign worker quota applications.
Some have queued up to 20 hours beginning the night before but were forced to have their interview dates postponed because of the large number that showed up. The Ministry can do a better job in this digital age and computer era than having employers who are already busy managing their businesses, queue up fruitlessly for long hours waiting unsuccessfully to be served.
Saravanan had said two weeks ago that the earlier applications to hire some 400,000 foreign workers will proceed before the end of this month. The failure in his Ministry yesterday to resolve the severe worker shortage will 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.
Malaysia’s E&E sector needs at least 30,000 workers urgently. More will be needed if companies want to expand their factories or set up new ones. The labour shortage could jeopardize exports for the electrical and electronics (E&E), which rose by 18% from RM386 billion in 2020 to RM456 billion in 2021, generated 56% of Malaysia’s 2021 trade surplus, and accounted for 6.3% of 2021’s total worldwide E&E exports.
How can Malaysia generate economic growth and if such a simple matter of documentation and processing of foreign labour recruitment cannot be resolved. The government must expedite foreign worker approvals through a transparent, predictable and effective mechanism. S. Saravanan should help and not harm businesses by cutting the red tape surrounding the many applications, implement an efficient processing system for a quick turnaround on the huge backlog of applications, and adopt decentralisation to the respective states via a One Stop Centre approach.
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. What happened yesterday is a damning indictment of the lack of performance and a litany of broken promises of S. Saravanan.