KUALA LUMPUR: The special committee established for better coordination between the Human Resources Ministry and Home Ministry will give an accurate representation on employment in the country, the Dewan Rakyat was told today.
Human Resources Minister Datuk Seri M. Saravanan said this would allow better cooperation between the two ministries that have different functions pertaining to foreign labour.
"Previously, we had problems to obtain an accurate number (of foreign workers). While we (are responsible to) answer about employment, work permits (for foreigners) are under the jurisdiction of a different ministry.
"I agree that we have this issue; and at the same time, would like to thank the prime minister for establishing a special committee that will be chaired by a senior minister.
"This committee has acknowledged the flaws and the home minister has agreed that we set up a platform to allow us to obtain an accurate number," he said in reply to a supplementary question by Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail (PH-Kulim Bandar Baharu) who raised the discrepancies on statistics and information between government agencies.
Saravanan earlier said the government would continue to give emphasis in providing more job opportunities to locals, especially youth, while reducing dependency on foreign labour that dominated the manufacturing and construction sectors.
He said measures were taken to address the impact on the country's job market following the Covid-19 pandemic.
Among them are wage subsidy programmes, employment retention programmes; boosting robotics and Internet of Things (IoT) to produce more local skilled workers; and freezing recruitment of foreign workers until end of the year.
Saravanan said as of July 1, manufacturers would have to advertise vacancies in the Jobs Malaysia portal for at least 30 days.
"Manufacturers will only be allowed to apply for foreign workers and expatriates if the vacancies are not filled in by locals," he said in reply to a question by Datuk Seri Abdul Azeez Abdul Rahim (BN-Baling), who said the number of registered foreign workers had gone down from 1.98 million in January to 1.54 million in May this year, based on data released by the Immigration Department.
It was reported that there are about 837,800 foreigners in the construction, agriculture and plantation sectors; while the rest are employed in manufacturing (about 700,000), services (about 309,000) and domestic work (about 130,000).