I want to highlight a very serious problem on our hands - undocumented foreign workers. The Malaysian Employers Federation recently estimated that there are nearly 3.3 million undocumented foreign workers against 2.2 million documented foreign employees in Malaysia, in addition to about 180,000 refugees.
Many critics strongly assert the infected undocumented foreign workers have sucked in valuable public resources in their treatments.
The Foreign Workers Compensation Scheme under Socso does not cover their medical treatments but they are fortunate because our government does.
There are a few important facts pertaining to undocumented foreign workers. They not only contribute hugely to our labour market, but they also support our economic growth.
Their income fuels domestic consumption, which in turn drives economic growth. The World Bank in March 2018 estimated undocumented foreign workers in Malaysia worked in manufacturing (36 percent), construction (19 percent), plantation (15 percent), services (14 percent), agriculture (9 percent) and domestic helper (7 percent).
These jobs are low-skilled, and they are 3Ds (dirty, dangerous, demeaning) too, which Malaysians are avoiding.
Thus, our economy depends on foreign workers. We have to live with it. Otherwise, many firms could not have survived in marketplaces in and outside our homeland.
Undocumented foreign workers in Malaysia took enormous risk to come in order to earn a higher level of expected income than in their home countries.
They have invested in using borrowed money to come here. They also are sacrificing uncountable psychological costs while working here.
Notwithstanding, just like in many other developed countries, there are many risk takers who cross national boundaries in getting jobs in order to maximise their expected income.
This is extremely difficult to stop. In Malaysia, one could not prevent anyone who wants to move from a rural area to a city where there is a higher expected income.
International migration of workers is similar too, because people who live in a low-income country move to—legally or illegally—high income countries. Immigration laws can prevent this type of people movement, but they are unable to shut out foreign workers entirely.
I want to illustrate we can be receptive and inclusive by installing a well-planned strategy for accommodating foreign workers in low-skilled and high-skilled labour markets. Social economic environments in many countries, including Malaysia, will change substantially after the pandemic.
In this context, governments will have to redefine their roles: the state must give particular emphasis on inclusive, just, equal, and humane approaches not only in mitigating inequality, but also in strengthening the security of livelihood in living together with foreign workers.
This strategy has to be consistent to present laws and regulations in general and to those governing the labour market as well.
It must encompass: a fair, equal, and just due process in seeking jobs by foreigners; a compulsory study of at least the elementary level in Bahasa Malaysia (joint-investments from workers and employers); a mandated contribution in EPF; a mandated contribution to unemployment insurance and medical health insurance; a compulsory saving fund for returning home when the employment contract is terminated with mutual consent; a compulsory short-term (2 to 4 weeks) skill-up trainings to be subsidised by the state; and other requirements that are pertained to a specific sector.
Enacting a statutory body to manage the operation of the said strategy for ensuring accountability and transparency can assure fair, just, more efficient and effective management in executing this new plan.
The proposed strategy, when it is implemented, is costly for foreigner workers and their employers. This strategy implicitly contains a preventive means for constraining the inflow of too many foreign workers.
The upside is, it incentivises foreign workers and their employers to contribute their roles in strengthening the competitiveness of human resources in our economy. This will surely make our livelihood better, more secure, and more meaningful in the post-corona landscape.
Lau Sim Yee
The writer is a professor at Reitaku University, Tokyo, and has been teaching Southeast Asia studies, international economics, integration, development economics and Asian economy since 1983
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times
