KUALA LUMPUR, March 9 — Foreign workers are not causing Malaysians to be unemployed as employers are only allowed to hire them for selected industries, the Human Resource Ministry said.
The ministry also said the lower unemployment rate among Malaysians and statistics showed that local youths without jobs are those not interested in becoming general workers.
“Therefore, the claim that the hiring and influx of foreign workers have caused locals to lose their jobs is baseless, as the average unemployment rate for the period between 2010 to 2015 is below the 3 per cent level.
“This means that the filling up of vacancies by foreign workers is not to replace local workers. And based on data obtained, most of the unemployed consist of youths and university graduates who are not interested to fill up vacancies as general workers,” the ministry said in a written parliamentary reply yesterday to DAP’s Bakri MP Er Teck Hwa.
The ministry cited job-matching portal JobsMalaysia’s 2015 statistics, which showed only 1,945 locals registered as job seekers in the category of general workers.
“However the demand by employers for the category of general work is far higher and this situation has forced the government to allow the hiring of foreign workers by employers for the sake of the industries’ continuity,” it said.
Earlier in its 12-page reply, the ministry said the government is constantly working to ensure that local workers are not sidelined or denied the right to work in all sectors.
It pointed out that employers are only allowed to hire foreign workers to fill up vacancies not taken up by locals in approved industries.
The government also requires employers to first advertise vacancies in the JobsMalaysia portal, a move which ensures priority is given to locals, the ministry said.
Employers are also only allowed to hire foreign workers in five formal sectors, namely construction, agriculture, plantation, factories and services that involve general workers – such as restaurant chefs, cleaners, theme park assistants, those in spa and reflexology centres and hotels.
Foreign workers can only be hired in one informal sector – as domestic maids – and this attracts little interest from locals, the ministry’s reply added.
The ministry said it has also set a ratio for the hiring of foreign and local workers in the approved sectors in order to control the influx of migrant workers and ensure job opportunities for locals.
Malaysia plans to ensure foreign workers make up less than 15 per cent of the country’s workforce by 2020, the ministry said.
