KUALA LUMPUR – Human Resources Minister Datuk Seri M. Saravanan has given an assurance that employment opportunities for local citizens will not be affected by the approximately 2.1 million migrant workers in the near future.
He said he would ensure that all applications from the industries to bring in more migrant workers after this would be studied in depth.
“Everyone is asking (for migrant workers), if I approve all their requests, locals may not have jobs in our country.
“I don’t want Kuala Lumpur to become a dumping ground,” he said during the oral question-and-answer session at the Dewan Rakyat here today.
He was responding to a supplementary question by Datuk Seri Mohd Salim Sharif (Jempol-BN), who wanted to know if the government could guarantee employment opportunities for Malaysians once the migrant workers are brought in.
Saravanan said a total of 2,127,722 migrant workers are expected to be working in various sectors in the country in one or two months.
This includes the 1,244,400 migrant workers in the country; 238,943 with approved eVDR (electronic visas) and 644,379 undergoing biometric and medical examinations in the source countries.
“This is a huge number. We have never been in this position. Before Covid-19, the total number of migrant workers was 1.8 million, soon over 300,000 people will be added to the list.
“So, after all these applications, as a minister, I’ll need to study in depth whether it is necessary or not (to approve new applications for migrant workers),” he said. – Bernama, October 4, 2022
