KUALA LUMPUR – The Parliament was today told that the Human Resources Ministry has approved 995,396 employment quotas for foreign workers as of March 14.
Deputy Human Resources Minister Mustapha Sakmud said of the total, the levy for 84.7% of them had been paid by the employers.
“Employers are given up to 18 months to bring in foreign workers to Malaysia after paying the levy,” he said during the question-and-answer session in the Dewan Rakyat today.
He was responding to a question from Chow Kon Yeow (Batu Kawan-PH), who asked about all ongoing negotiations, completed ones, and those still in the process with potential countries to supply labour, as well as the number of workers that are expected to be brought in and the length of time needed to overcome the current labour shortage.
Mustapha said most of the quotas approved were for workers in the manufacturing sector, followed by construction, services, plantations, agriculture, mining and quarrying.
He said so far, Malaysia has established labour cooperation for recruiting and employing foreign workers through memorandums of understanding (MoUs) with 10 source countries.
However, only eight MoUs are still in force, namely with Bangladesh, China, Indonesia, Thailand, Pakistan, Vietnam, Nepal and Cambodia, he said, adding that the MoU with India and Sri Lanka had expired.
The ministry, he said, had finalised the MoU with the Indian government on March 13 and is expected to be signed before the end of the first quarter of this year. – Bernama, March 29, 2023
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