M'SIA: EMPLOYERS COMPELLED TO GIVE PREFERENCE TO LOCAL WORKERS

PUTRAJAYA, Sept 4 (Bernama) -- The Home Ministry will ensure that employers give preference to locals to fill up vacant posts before approving their applications for foreign workers.

Its minister Syed Hamid Albar said the ministry would provide
information on qualified locals from the Human Resources Ministry database to the companies for consideration.

"If they say that the local workers are not qualified for the jobs, we will
check on the veracity of their claims before approving their applications for
foreign workers," he told reporters here Thursday.

He said the ministry would also ensure that the ratio between local and
foreign workers was observed by employers.

Syed Hamid said the ministry would come down hard on foreign workers who
overstayed their employment -- 10 years for skilled workers and five years for
unskilled workers.

On a newspaper report on the difficulty of getting working permits for
foreign monks, he said it should never happen as the Immigration Department had
been told in writing to approve them.

"We will monitor the situation, and if the problems persisted, refer to us
and we will solve them," he said.

Syed Hamid said the approval was given to enable locals to be trained to
replace foreign monks.

-- BERNAMA