KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian Employers Federation (MEF) today proposed for special approval to be given to use the labour among the refugees, undocumented foreign workers and prisoners on minor crimes within the country to cover the shortage of foreign workers.

President Datuk Dr Syed Hussain Syed Husman said those people with the special approval of the government can be deployed immediately to fill up the current acute shortage until the new foreign workers finally arrived.

"The plantation industry lost more than RM30 billion due to shortage of harvesters. Billions were lost as the ripe fruits were not harvested to convert to palm oil due to shortage of workers.

"Similar shortage is being experienced by other sectors such as manufacturing, tourism retail services and construction," he said in a statement today.

According to the statement, employers are facing acute shortage of foreign workers due to the freeze of the recruitment of new foreign workers imposed during COVID-19 pandemic period in 2020 and 2021 as well as the closure of Malaysian borders.

Since mid-February this year, the government lifted the freeze on recruitment of foreign workers, however, the application and approval processes are still not running smoothly and no new foreign workers are brought in thus far, it said.

Syed Hussain cited it was reported that there are about 168,000 refugees holding United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) card and more than 60 per cent of them are potentially employable.

He said the Malaysian business community had spent a lot of time and resources to fill up the shortages but to no avail.

"With the higher world demand for Malaysian products and services every second delay is translated to loss of revenue to businesses and government. Employers need the new workers urgently to assist in their recovery efforts and put their businesses on the right path.

"We need to look for quick solutions as short gap measures until all issues on foreign labour recruitment are resolved," he said.

-- BERNAMA