Malaysia will not hire any more foreign workers, the state news agency Bernama reports quoting country’s Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi.
“Ahmad Zahid who is also the home minister, said following the Cabinet’s decision, the issue of bringing 1.5 million Bangladeshi workers into the country could be considered ‘closed’,” reads the report published on Saturday.
The decision, made on Friday, did not involve the domestic help or maid sectors, the minister added.
Officials in Dhaka were expecting that Malaysia would recruit 1.5 million workers following a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between the two countries on Feb 18, though Malaysia postponed hiring of foreign workers the following day.
While announcing the postponement, Hamidi had said his country would not hire foreign workers until it ascertained its actual manpower needs.
It would instead focus on its programme for rehiring foreign workers, he had said.
On Saturday, The Straits Times quoted him as saying, “There will not be one, let alone 1.5 million new foreign workers coming into our country.”
“Employers who need workers will have to apply to legalise existing foreigners in the country without work permits or whose permits have expired,” he added, according to the newspaper.
Currently, around 600,000 Bangladeshis are working in Malaysia.
Bangladesh had been sending workers to the country’s plantation sector after a government-to-government deal inked in 2013.
But the number of Bangladeshis going to Malaysia under the deal was much less than what was expected as the workers seemed to be unwilling to work in the sector.
Under the new MoU, Bangladeshi workers had gotten the opportunity to work in Malaysia’s service, construction, farming and manufacturing sectors.
Source: bdnews24