KUALA LUMPUR, July 26 — The Human Resource Ministry will not impose a blanket ban on the hiring of foreign workers, and businesses will still be allowed to bring them into the country as foreign guest workers, minister M. Kulasegaran said.

During Question Time today, the Ipoh Barat MP however said that new initiatives and policies are still needed to curb the influx of foreign workers, whom he claimed were brought in haphazardly during Barisan Nasional’s (BN) era.

"We need to give priority to local workers in this matter but we received a  lot of protests from restaurants, that this new  policy shift is not going to give them time to replace foreign staffs with locals.

"However, we want a win-win policy, where there is no blanket policy. We will give chance to all restaurants, including bosses, to bring foreign guest workers to work here.  That’s first. That policy didn’t change, because we lack in workers who like certain jobs; the 3Ds: Dangerous, difficult, dirty, in principle.

"We need a new initiative, and a new policy. Therefore the Cabinet has recently formed a committee with the Home Ministry and my ministry, to chart a new policy with regards to foreign workers intake,” Kulasegaran added.

He claimed that under BN, over 200,000 foreign workers were brought in without the knowledge of the ministry.

Kulasegaran was responding to an additional question by Port Dickson MP, Datuk Daniyal Balagopal Abdullah, if the ministry would impose a total ban on the hiring of foreign workers or would consideration be given on a case-to-case basis, as locals do not prefer working in restaurants.

On June 22, Kulasegaran told Bernama News Channel (BNC) that all restaurants in the country to only recruit locals as cooks beginning July 1.

He reportedly said business operators would however,  be given a grace period till year’s end to observe the ruling, adding that current laws only permits local cooks.

"So we want locals to be employed as cooks. There will be no compromise...we are giving you notice to do it by December 31. If you don’t do it we can’t help it,” he was quoted telling BNC.

The announcement caught business operators by surprise, with many lamenting the move.

Kulasegaran later said the statement was a mere suggestion.

Earlier today, Kulasegaran said that foreign workers who are mostly hired to fill job vacancies in unskilled sectors would not pose as a threat to the employment of Malaysians, especially those with legitimate vocational certification.

He said that the intake of foreign workers is to fill vacancies in sectors deemed unskilled, such as in plantation, cleaning and factory operators.

"The intake of foreign works in local job markets is to fill vacancies of workers in sectors and industries which need low-skilled or unskilled manpower. Such jobs are construction workers, factory operators, janitors, plantation an agricultural workers who do not need any qualification of vocational skills certification.

"According to statistics released by JobsMalaysia, jobs like that are where the vacancies exceed application by locals. Therefore, the sectors filled by foreign workers would not affect the hiring of local workers who are skilled and have vocational certificates,” Kulasegaran added.