Foreign Employees Limited, Malaysia Is Suffering Through a Labor Shortage
By LIZ GOOCH (August 31, 2009)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/01/business/economy/01labor.html
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — It is lunchtime at the Wangsa Ukay restaurant in suburban Kuala Lumpur, and regulars are coming in for local favorites like roti canai, chicken curry and teh tarik, the sweet, milky drink that is ubiquitous across Malaysia.
The owner, Muneandy Nalepan, has time to stop and talk for now, but when peak times hit on weekends, he and his wife must pitch in to help clear tables.
He used to have a staff of 120 — almost all foreigners — working in his five restaurants across the city. But after the government made it more difficult for businesses to hire workers from abroad, he is down to 80 because he has been unable to replace the 40 employees who had to return home after the maximum work period of five years.
Unable to find Malaysians willing to work as cooks, waiters or dishwashers, he is awaiting approval to employ more foreigners. But if he cannot get more workers soon, he says, he might close one of his outlets. Mr. Muneandy, an 18-year veteran of the industry, is even considering other business ventures.
“To run a restaurant, it’s becoming impossible,” he said.
It is not just restaurant owners who are complaining. Many business owners, like furniture producers and rubber glove manufacturers, say a labor shortage is harming productivity.
In January, Malaysia sharply curtailed the hiring of new foreign workers in the manufacturing and service sectors after a government report predicted that 45,000 people could be laid off during the Lunar New Year at the end of that month, The New Straits Times reported.
“There is no valid reason to bring in foreign workers at this time,” Syed Hamid Albar, the home minister, told the paper.
The action was backed by labor groups. The Malaysian Trades Union Congress proposed a freeze on the recruitment of foreign workers last October.
“Because of the global economic downturn, we were worried about the impact on jobs for Malaysians as well as foreigners,” said Rajasekaran Govindasamy, the group’s secretary general. “We don’t want workers to be brought in and abandoned, because that then causes hardship.”
In 2008, there were an estimated 2.2 million foreigners — mostly from Indonesia, Bangladesh, Nepal, India, Myanmar and Vietnam — working legally in Malaysia, a nation of 28 million. Some reports suggested the country was home to an additional one million illegal workers. By March this year, the number of foreigners with work permits had fallen to 1.9 million, according to Shamsuddin Bardan, executive director of the Malaysian Federation of Employers.
“About 300,000 permits were not renewed, and people were sent back,” he said.
Malaysia recorded 31,392 layoffs from January through July, and the country’s unemployment rate rose to 4 percent in the first quarter of this year, the latest period for which figures are available. That was up from 3.1 percent in the fourth quarter of last year.
The average monthly wage in the manufacturing industry has risen to 650 to 700 ringgit ($183 to $197) in the last three months, up from 450 ringgit, the national news agency Bernama reported in August.
Mr. Rajasekaran said foreign workers often accepted lower wages than Malaysians. The country has no minimum wage. Typically, foreigners are brought in by a business offering a job, he said, or by an outsourcing company that promises them work.
Mr. Shamsuddin said that companies could still apply to recruit foreigners but that the process had become more difficult.
For example, he said that since April 1, employers have had to advertise vacancies locally for two months, up from one month, before they could apply to recruit foreigners. And employers must now pay an annual levy — as much as 1,800 ringgit — for any new foreigners they employ, he said. The fee used to be paid by workers. Mr. Shamsuddin said the government abandoned plans to double the levy after the federation complained.
Dominant Semiconductor, a light bulb manufacturer with factories in Malaysia and China, is struggling to fill about 1,000 vacancies. Its chairman, Goh Nan Kioh, said the company was allowed to employ one foreigner for every local worker, but could not find enough Malaysians to help increase its total work force. If the labor shortage continued, he said, the company might consider moving more of its labor-intensive operations to China.
Mohamed Ariff, executive director of the Malaysian Institute of Economic Research, said the country’s dependence on foreign labor was a result of a decision to “open the floodgates” to migrant workers in the late 1980s, first in the plantation sector, then in manufacturing.
Mr. Ariff said that in the early 1990s, when wages in the manufacturing sector were rising, factories had considered introducing labor-saving technology but that many had shelved those plans when the government let them employ more foreign workers.
“The technology transfer suffered enormously,” he said. “Malaysia was trapped into an unskilled, labor-intensive economy.”
Figures released by the government last week showed that the economy had emerged from recession in the second quarter. Mr. Rajasekaran, the labor leader, said that although job losses were easing, the unions thought the freeze on foreign workers should continue. If there is a need for more workers in the coming months, he said, companies should be able to extend the visas of foreign workers already in the country.
Asia Pacific Countries To Discuss Migrant Labour Issues
http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newsgeneral.php?id=437025
PETALING JAYA, Aug 31 (Bernama) -- Organising migrant workers in Asia Pacific countries and forming a global network will be among the important issues to be discussed at an international workshop organised by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) beginning here on Wednesday.
The workshop, to be attended by more than 30 trade union leaders from 17 Asia Pacific countries, will also study the possibility of establishing migrant labour centres in the region.
Countries participating in the two-day workshop, besides Malaysia, include Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Jordan, Bahrain, Mongolia, Nepal, South Korea and Pakistan.
Local co-organiser Malaysian Trades Union Congress (MTUC), in a statement today, said the workshop would also facilitate the exchange of information and sharing of experience among participating countries on the issue.
Its vice president, A. Balasubramaniam, said the workshop was timely and significant as the impact of migrant workers both for the sending and receiving countries was substantial, socially and economically.
He said Malaysia would gain much from the workshop as it had a substantial migrant population of more than 1.9 million legal and another 1.2 million illegal workers from Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Myanmar, Cambodia and Vietnam.
RI lacks ‘political will’ to help housemaids
The Jakarta Post , Jakarta | Thu, 08/27/2009 9:06 AM
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2009/08/27/ri-lacks-%E2%80%98political-will%E2%80%99-help-housemaids.html
Migrant Care, an NGO advocating for the rights of migrant workers, has urged the government to immediately ratify the 2003 ILO convention on the protection of migrant workers and their families to counter increasing abuse against housemaids both at home and abroad.
“The government should no longer have any reasons to delay ratifying this important convention.
They should remember the increasing number of fatalities in workplace, labor extortion both at home and overseas, widespread trafficking of women and children and the increase in HIV/AIDS among sex workers,” Migrant Care executive director, Anis Hidayah, told The Jakarta Post by telephone in Jakarta on Wednesday.
She said the government was reluctant to ratify the convention because it believed the measures would only protect domestic, not international, workers.
“But it is impossible for Indonesia to ask other countries to ratify the convention if it itself does not do it. If all UN member countries ratify the convention, all destination countries employing Indonesian migrant workers will be obliged to take measures to protect them. Likewise, Indonesia will also reciprocate and protect expatriates working here, including housemaids,” she said.
Anis said the number of workers who had either died or been abused at their work places in Malaysia and Middle East had spiked in the last three years, despite the signing of a bilateral labor agreement and memorandums of understanding (MOUs) between the two countries.
The ILO convention, which took effect on July 1, 2003, has only been ratified by 35 countries. It stipulates that migrant workers have the right to form a union, be protected from arbitrary dismissal, move to another workplace and seek another job.
A joint working group from Indonesia and Malaysia is still reviewing the bilateral labor agreement but have agreed workers should be allowed one day off per week and be allowed to hold onto their own passport.
Migrant Care called on the joint working group to also allow migrant workers — mainly housemaids — to be allowed to leave their workplace on their day off and visit whoever they feel. They also demanded that workers be able to maintain contact with their relatives back home.
“If workers are not allowed to leave their place of employment on their day off,” Anis said, “then the review becomes quite redundant.”
Anis said it was regrettable the government had decided to not support a proposed convention on international standards for housemaids, which was scheduled to be endorsed at an international labor conference in Geneva in 2011.
“This is a strong indication that the government has no political will to protect workers in the domestic sector and holds no bargaining power to pressure other countries into provide protection for Indonesian migrant workers,” she said.
The government’s decision to support a non-binding recommendation on international standards for housemaids was discussed at a recent meeting between the Manpower and Transmigration Ministry and other relevant ministries, including the Home Ministry, Health Ministry, National Development and Planning Board (Bappenas) and the Foreign Ministry.
The ILO office in Jakarta, in cooperation with civil society groups, drafted a bill which deals specifically with the protection of housemaids and gave it to the Manpower and Transmigration Ministry. The Ministry, for unspecified reasons, has been reluctant to forward it to the House of Representatives for further deliberation.
The bill outlines minimum wages for housemaids, working hours, extra-hour payments, days off and annual vacation.
“This is a strong indication that the government has no political will to protect workers in the domestic sector and holds no bargaining power to pressure other countries into provide protection for Indonesian migrant workers,”
