EMPLOYERS CALL FOR REVIEW OF 5-YEAR CAP REVIEW FOR SKILLED FOREIGNERS

PETALING JAYA (Malaysia), July 23 (Bernama) -- Employers Thursday called on
the government to review its policy to allow skilled foreigners to work in the
country for a maximum of five years because it could be detrimental to local
businesses.

The Malaysian Employers Federation (MEF) executive director Shamsuddin
Bardan said the nett effect of the policy would be that employers would have
to spend a lot of time and money to retrain new workers.

At present, the policy was to allow unskilled workers to work here for two
years, and from the third year onwards their visa extension depended on their
skills.

"Usually these workers were sent to various training courses by the
companies and they acquire the required skills to make them eligible to get
their visa renewed."

"In reality the workers begin to be productive only from the fourth year
onwards, and if we send them off, it would be great loss not only to the
companies but also the country," he told Bernama.

He said the loss would be other countries' gain because these trained
workers were in much demand elsewhere.

Shamsuddin was commenting on the recent government decision to put a cap
of maximum five years service by skilled foreigners as one of the strategies to
reduce the country's dependence on them.

He said the MEF fully supported the government's move to reduce foreign
labour in Malaysia but restricting the duration for skilled workers would be
counter productive.

He agreed with the MTUC's suggestion that the government should instead look
into the possibility of restricting the intake of foreign unskilled workers.

"We should encourage and train more locals to acquire skills so that they
could easily replace foreigners."

At present there were some 2.1 million foreign workers legally employed in
the various sectors.

On the government's intention to attract highly skilled and professional
Malaysians abroad to come back and "help develop the country", Shamsuddin said
the present policy of enticing these group of workers had not been successful
despite the many incentives.

"This was mainly due to the fact the remuneration they received in this
country was five times less than what they were getting in their host country."

"So to benefit from their skills, what Malaysia could do was to tap their
expertise "using modern technology like video conferencing."

"They can continue to work in the host country, yet they can contribute to
Malaysia since what was most required was to harness their ideas and
experience," he pointed out.

"The government could also gather these Malaysians every year to brainstorm
and come up with ideas and suggestions to develop the country."
--BERNAMA