Solve foreign workers issue with Indonesia immediately, MEF urges Putrajaya

SHAH ALAM – Malaysian Employers Federation (MEF) wants Putrajaya to resolve the foreign workers issue with Indonesia and Bangladesh immediately as they battle with an acute labour shortage, causing them to lose millions in operations.

This comes as officials from the human resources and home ministries will meet tomorrow to discuss the freeze on worker recruitment announced by the Indonesian government

MEF president Datuk Dr Syed Hussain Syed Husman said locals are not taking up the jobs despite 3.9 per cent or almost 700,000 locals are unemployed.

“Even those who take up jobs leave after a week,” he said in a statement.

He added it was crucial for the government to resolve the outstanding issues with Indonesia and Bangladesh to ensure the smooth supply of foreign workers would not be disrupted.

Apart from that, Syed Hussain also pointed out the concerns of employers in getting approval for workers' accommodation and wages.

He said Human Resource Minister Datuk Seri M Saravanan agreed to set up a technical committee with key stakeholders to address the issues.

Several days ago, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob instructed Home Minister Datuk Seri Hamzah Zainuddin and Saravanan to resolve the issue as he did not want the problem to affect Malaysia’s ties with Indonesia.

On July 13, Indonesian ambassador Hermono said that the republic had imposed a temporary freeze on all Indonesian workers entering Malaysia.

The temporary freeze, he had said was due to the Malaysian immigration department’s continued use of the Maid Online System (MOS) to facilitate the recruitment of Indonesian maids instead of the One Channel System as agreed in the memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the two countries.

The MOS allows Indonesian workers to enter the country using a tourist visa before applying for a work permit, of which Jakarta is not in favour due to the risk of forced labour.