Activist Pokes Holes In Plan For 10 Cap On Migrant Workers

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North-South Initiative executive director Adrian Pereira says industry still depends on undocumented migrant workers.
On Aug 19, home minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail said the government has decided to reopen applications for migrant worker quotas, but only for specific sectors and subsectors. (Bernama pic)PETALING JAYA: A migrant rights activist has cast doubt on the government’s move to set a lower ceiling on migrant workers in Malaysia as a means of solving the problem of undocumented migrant workers in the country
North-South Initiative executive director Adrian Pereira said the reduction of the ceiling from 15% to 10% was not economically feasible. Industries would still need migrant workers, he said.
Malaysia’s population of undocumented migrant workers has been estimated to be at a ratio of 1:1 or 1:2 per documented migrant worker.
Adrian Pereira.“The total number of migrant workers in the labour force could be up to 30%. If you cap it at 10%, what happens to the undocumented migrant workers?” he told FMT.
On Aug 19, home minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail said the government had decided to reopen applications for migrant worker quotas, but only for specific sectors and subsectors. He said the ceiling on the number of migrant workers under the 13th Malaysia Plan would be set at 10% after Dec 31.
However, Pereira claimed his NGO had generally found, through investigation of upstream and downstream companies, that “every supply chain utilises, either directly or indirectly, the services of undocumented migrants”.
“This is our problem with our metrics and planning. There are thousands of illegal factories off the books. We don’t know the actual data for supply and demand, so I’m not really sure how the ministers come up with such policies,” he said.
Pereira also took issue with the move to limit applications for the construction sector to government projects, saying it “does not make sense”, and raised concerns of possible illegal practices in hiring undocumented workers by the companies contracted.
“Are we saying the government has a monopoly on construction? What about the construction of major data centres and major semiconductor plants? It looks like some illegality is going to happen,” he said.
Short-term solution
Ida Yasin.Ida Yasin, an economist at Universiti Putra Malaysia’s Putra Business School, said lifting the freeze on migrant worker hires should be a short to medium-term solution.
“The long-term solution is to reduce the dependence on low-skilled foreign workers as much as possible. We need to go for mechanisation or semi-automatisation in our industries,” she said.
Ida said Malaysia has not fully mechanised the harvesting of oil palm fruits, and still relies on manpower. “We should go into mechanisation and automatisation as much as possible to reduce our dependence on foreign workers,” she said.
However, Pereira said there is “nothing wrong” with dependence on migrant labour. He said Singapore continued to rely on migrant labour despite attempts to modernise and reduce the number of 3D (dirty, dangerous and difficult) jobs.
“No matter how much they try, the 3D jobs don’t disappear. They are transformed with decent work conditions and better wages. They may not be labelled as 3D jobs, but as ‘labour intensive’. Singapore still has a high percentage of foreign workers.
“I think the government has miscalculated in pushing for so-called non-dependence on migrant workers,” he said.
Technology was no solution, he said. The Malaysian education system, “which is also in shambles” could not churn out graduates as quickly as thought, and could not produce graduates with technical skills and the necessary soft skills. - FMT

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