TEMPORARY FREEZE ON FOREIGN WORKERS BEING CONSIDERED BY SAJAD HUSSEIN

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 15 (Bernama) -- The Human Resources Ministry is
considering a temporary freeze on the recruitment of foreign workers,
Director-General of Labour, Ismail Abdul Rahim disclosed Monday.

He told Bernama that this was one of the options the ministry was actively
studying to assist locals who were being displaced from work to be
employed.

As of last month, a total of 28,000 jobless Malaysians had registered with
the Labour Department and so far the department had managed to find jobs for
6,000 of them.

At present there are some 2.1 million foreign workers in Malaysia which
translates to about 20 per cent of the total workforce.

It was reported recently that there were 2,000 to 3,000 jobless Malaysians
every month registered with the ministry.

The figures are expected to be increase in the coming months with the
growing world recession which would impact Malaysia next year.

In an immediate reaction, both the Malaysian Trades Union Congress (MTUC)
which represents 550,000 private sector workers, and the Congress of Employees
in the Public and Civil Service (Cuepacs) which is an umbrella union for the 1.2
million government sector workers, welcomed the freeze as a "logical move to
protect local workers".

MTUC's vice-president A. Balasubramaniam said there was now a surplus of
foreign workers in the country and it was time to reduce them to provide
Malaysians who were displaced from the jobs to be employed.

He suggested that migrant workers who have completed their contracts,
should be sent home to make way for Malaysians to take their places.

Cuepacs secretary-general, Ahmad Shah Mohd Zin said although the civil
service was not affected by the foreign workers influx, nevertheless it was a
worrying trend as it not only deprived Malaysians of jobs, but also caused
social problems.

"We notice that there is an increase in crime in our country and this
can be attributed to foreigners and jobless Malaysians," he said.

Ismail said Singapore had indicated that it would retrench about 500,000
workers and some of them would be Malaysians.

As a proactive measure, the Labour Department had opened up registration
for these workers and they were advised to register with the nearest Labour
office.

Alternatively, they can also register online on the dedicated job finder
JobMalaysia portal run by the department.

Employers who have vacancies were also encouraged to use this portal to
advertise the jobs.

Ismail said the Ministry was doing its best to pre-empt the unemployment
problem and had taken other proactive measures to assist jobless
Malaysians.

He said on Tuesday, Human Resources Minister Dr S. Subramaniam and senior
ministry officials would be in southern state of Johor to meet employers to
brief them on the do's and don'ts of retrenchment.

Ismail said the Human Resources Ministry was prepared to meet any
eventuality and would be able to lessen the impact of job losses through its
various job placement and training programmes.

He hoped all stakeholders - workers, employers and government would
work together to lessen if not eliminate the impact of job losses in the country
in view of the world economic meltdown.
-- BERNAMA