Malaysia needs 35 per cent skilled local workers by 2020 - Ismail

Malaysia needs to have 35 per cent of skilled local workers to achieve the status of a fully-developed nation by 2020, said Deputy Human Resources Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Abd Muttalib.

He said, at present, only 28 per cent of the 14.3 million workers in the country were skilled local workers.

The oil and gas sector also requires 30 per cent skilled workers, he said.

"We are in the midst of studying the extent of our requirement for labour.

We do not want foreign workers to take up the vacancies that should be filled by local workers," he said in reply to Nasrudin Hassan (PAS-Temerloh) at the Dewan Rakyat sitting here today.

Nasruddin also asked about measures taken to address the issue of increasing number of unskilled foreign workers, which had resulted in a cash outflow of RM28 billion last year.

Ismail said the recruitment of foreign workers was only open to five sectors, namely construction, agriculture, plantation, manufacturing and services, which were less attractive to local workers.