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PUTRAJAYA – The management of migrant workers between the Home Ministry and Human Resources Ministry has been realigned in an effort to reduce the period of migrant worker recruitment to less than 30 days.
The proposed realignment of migrant worker management was among the matters agreed upon at the special meeting of the joint committee between the home and human resources ministers here today.
Home Minister Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail said the management of migrant workers would be spearheaded by his ministry as the “main custodian”, while the Human Resources Ministry’s role in certain aspects would be maintained.
He said the Human Resources Ministry’s role in labour policy, determining quota eligibility, and finalising cooperation with source countries under the realignment would be strengthened.
In April 2022, Saifuddin said the centralised management of migrant workers would be under the Human Resources Ministry.
The Human Resources Ministry remains in charge of identifying source countries and entering into agreements.
“Under this realignment process, 75% of approvals will be under the Home Ministry’s jurisdiction. For example, the process of employers applying for workers and the initial permission to apply for quotas,” he said at a joint press conference with Human Resources Minister V. Sivakumar after the special meeting.
Saifuddin said the cabinet had, on December 7 and 21, agreed to realign the roles of managing migrant workers and consider appropriate relaxations for recruiting migrant workers in Malaysia.
He said that stakeholders like employers, industries, associations, and migrant workers need not worry about the realignment, because it will not affect the existing procedures and applications to hire migrant workers.
“The focus of realignment is on the governance of migrant worker management,” he said.
Saifuddin said today’s meeting also agreed with the proposal to relax the conditions and procedures for migrant worker quota applications to an optimum level, to balance economic development needs with the interests of national security.
Among others, he said, the relaxations include efforts to simplify the assessment of employers’ qualifications to hire migrant labour, the conditions of quota approval, the immigration process, and security screenings.
“We hope this can make the process of recruiting migrant workers be carried out in less than 30 days. We have seen how we can shorten this period,” he said.
As of December 31 last year, there were 1,459,196 migrant workers on temporary work passes in Malaysia, with the majority of them in the manufacturing sector (538,148), followed by construction (315,932) and services (221,621).
The total included 316,446 new migrant workers employed last year, Saifuddin said, adding that the highest number of migrant workers in Malaysia were from Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Nepal.
Last year, he said, 1,606,724 migrant worker quota applications were received, of which 676,070 were approved. – Bernama, January 5, 2023
