PUTRAJAYA: A meeting will be held between the Human Resources and Home ministries next week to finetune the mechanism for the recruitment of foreign workers involving barbershops, textiles and goldsmiths.

Human Resources Minister V.Sivakumar said the meeting will also detail the new application procedures and processes for the three sub-sectors.

"Applications have not yet been opened, could be soon," he said in a press conference after officiating a seminar on combatting forced labour in Malaysia here today.

He was asked about the application status of 7,500 foreign workers allocated for the three sub-sectors that were approved by the Cabinet.

On September 4, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim said he had approved part of the applications for the recruitment of foreign workers for three sub-sectors which had been frozen since 2009.

However, Anwar placed the condition that local youths must also be trained to fill up vacancies in the three sectors.

Prior to the announcement, Sivakumar was reported to have said that many employers had been forced to close their businesses, or were close to doing so, due to a serious shortage of manpower in the three sub-sectors.

-- BERNAMA