Employers must immediately hire foreign workers under RTK programme - Hamzah

SEPANG: Employers have been given two weeks for the placement of 280,088 foreign workers who have registered under the Labour Recalibration Programme (RTK), said Home Minister Datuk Seri Hamzah Zainuddin.

He said the Home Ministry (KDN) had called on the employers concerned to immediately employ the workers who have registered under the RTK programme and listed as legal foreign workers.

"I want to see that all of them are employed in our country and issued a valid PLKS (Temporary Employment Visit Pass). That's what we want to do," he told the media after launching the Expatriate Services Division (ESD) Satellite Centre (ESC) at Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA), here today.

According to Hamzah, of the 280,088 foreign workers who have registered under the RTK programme, over 120,000 are involved in the plantation sector and the number only represents between 20 and 30 per cent of the labour required by the country's plantation sector.

On reports that the government had agreed to allow the entry of 32,000 foreign workers with special exemptions to meet the manpower needs of the plantation sector, especially oil palm, Hamzah said: "To be realistic, 32,000 is not enough for our plantations here, we actually need a much bigger number. "

Meanwhile he said although it has been announced that 32,000 foreign workers would be brought in, it has been over a month and not one has arrived.

-- BERNAMA