KUALA LUMPUR | Locals would rather become food delivery drivers and earn more money than join certain industries in the country, said Human Resources Minister Datuk Seri M. Saravanan.
He said despite the best of government efforts to put locals first to fulfil the shortages in these industries, there were no takers for 3D (dirty, dangerous and difficult) jobs.
“You have to understand that the scenario and industries have changed. Why would someone work in a plantation sector when they could become a Grab delivery driver?” It is for this reason that we must move forward in bringing in the workers and rolling out automation. It is no longer an employer’s market,” he said when asked about paring down the number of foreign workers coming into the country.
During a press conference yesterday, Saravanan announced that a total of 24,560 foreign workers were expected to complete their interviews by April 27.
They were part of the first batch scheduled to enter the nation, he said, with another 154,560 workers also expected to come in after completing their verification process in six weeks.
“We have received a total of 519,937 applications as of April 7 across all sectors, but 290,937 applications did not click the send button. As such, we are in the midst of contacting them to guide them on how to do the applications.
“Some 40,000 were rejected immediately for several reasons such as incomplete forms and not following guidelines,” he said.
Saravanan revealed that prior to the pandemic, there were 1.7 million foreign workers in the country and there were now 1.17 million left. Based on the total number of new applications, he noted that one could see it was almost the same number of people that had left.
“Industry players were upset when we did not let foreign workers come in and it was unfair to them as they continued to suffer losses. The plantation industry alone suffered losses of RM20bil, but now we are moving forward.“ For the past two years, no foreign workers have come in and, before this, there were higher officers who could approve these applications and oversee such matters. That is no longer the case as everything is done online,” Saravanan added. He said all the applications were also shared among relevant government departments and agencies.
He said the Home Ministry had frozen the hiring of foreign workers in sectors such as textile, barber shops, scrap metal and goldsmith shops, but if there was a dire need to fill vacancies in these sectors, the matter would be brought for further discussions.
