Stop commercialising foreign workers recruitment - MEF

The exploitation of foreign workers recruitment for profits which benefits only certain parties should be stopped immediately, said The Malaysian Employers Federation (MEF) executive director Datuk Shamsuddin Bardan.

He said the number of foreign workers in this category, which now stood at more than 4 million, is worrying as it is way bigger than the total number of documented foreign workers of only 2.2 million.

“We could become millionaires if we venture into the foreign worker recruitment sector due to all this commercialisation but it has to stop since the intent of the recruitment is to fill out job vacancies, not to make profits in business.”

Shamsuddin said this when appeared in Bernama TV’s ‘Suara Profesor Negara’ programme discussing Post COVID-19: Strategy To Encourage Utilisation of Local Manpower’ yesterday.

Meanwhile, Universiti Malaysia Kelantan Dean of Entrepreneurship and Business Faculty, Prof Dr Roselina Ahmad Saufi said social stigma is one of the reasons local workers are fastidious when it comes to employment even though they are potentially eligible to do the 3D (difficult, dangerous, dirty) jobs.

She said that this discrimination was further driven by their own attitude that deemed working in the sectors such as farming, manufacturing and construction would embarrass them and did not do justice to their qualifications and passion.

“If the number of foreign workers is reduced drastically and local workers are provided with job opportunities with better incentives, they would accept the jobs but the issue is from the aspect of social stigma which needs to be changed regarding the 3D sector. The sector should be rebranded,” she said.

-- BERNAMA