Employers must screen all foreign workers by March 31- Saravanan

"They have until the end of this month and after March 31, we will take action," he said in a news conference after witnessing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signing ceremony between the Human Resource Ministry and the Entrepreneur Development and Cooperatives Ministry here, today.

Previously, employers were given time until Feb 28 to screen their foreign workers and failure to do so could result in their workers' temporary work visit passes not being renewed.

Saravanan said initially, the COVID-19 screening programme on foreign workers were limited to six states under the red zone category but the government decided to extend the programme to all states following its effectiveness in curbing the spread of the pandemic.

He said so far, over one million out of 1.7 million foreign workers registered with the Social Security Organisation have been screened under the programme.

Meanwhile, he said the ministry and the Home Ministry have identified a total of 300,000 illegal foreign workers under the Recalibration Plan which was introduced to assist the government in tracing illegal immigrants to contain the COVID-19 pandemic.