KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 12 — A member of Parliament today warned that the disconnected efforts in the management and procurement of foreign workers in all sectors would hamper the nation's economic growth and throw up even more challenges, especially at a time where there is a shortage of workers.

Petaling Jaya MP Maria Chin Abdullah said that efforts by the Ministry of Human Resources (MoHR) should be more focused on a strategic path to rebuilding ailing industries affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

She added that each ministry seemed to be working in a silo, only focusing on building its own portfolio.

“The recruitment of foreign workers needs systematic and professional management between the MoHR, Ministry of Home Affairs and other related Ministries. Last year, the minister of plantation industries and commodities randomly announced that her ministry was recruiting 50,000 foreign workers to work on the plantations.

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“Today, we have the Ministry of Human Resources making a similar announcement. It appears there is no strategic foresight in human resource planning,” she said in a statement today.

She said that according to the Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers (FMM), Malaysia needs to replenish over 600,000 foreign workers by 2022 to overcome the current manpower shortage in order to bring businesses back to pre-pandemic levels.

She added that FMM also found that electric and electronics (E&E), food and beverages, chemicals and chemical products, fabricated metal and rubber products are among the top five

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manufacturing sub-sectors most affected by the shortage.

“While it is ideal to expect these manual jobs will be taken up by our local workers, this is indeed not happening. This too reflects a mismatch between the market demand of workers and our educated 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,” she said.

As for the minimum wage, Maria said that it should be reviewed as the current floor of RM1,200 is archaic and insufficient, and should be raised to at least RM1,500 by this year.

“There are many ministries operating TVET in silos and it is the role and responsibility of the Ministry of Human Resources, Education, Trade and Industry to coordinate and synchronise the content of TVET and our educational institutions so as to build more competitive and innovative workers who will be able to meet market demands, be it national or international,” she added.

She said that the Home Ministry has been unsupportive on the issue of foreign workers and had built barriers which deter their entry to Malaysia.

“Ill treatment of foreign workers, and deporting them whenever the Ministry decides, are just some of the unresolved issues. And yet, when Ministers announced the entry of foreign workers into their own industries, bureaucratic barriers seem to have come down.

“There must be consistency in the recruitment as well as control over inflow so as to also protect our local workers. Haphazard immigration policies do not help our economy,” she said.

Yesterday, the Cabinet decided that a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on the recruitment and placement of Indonesian domestic workers (PDI) should be signed immediately, said Human Resources Minister Datuk Seri M. Saravanan.

He said the MoU would be signed by him and his Indonesian counterpart Ida Fauziyah.