THE Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers (FMM) is against the proposed move by the Human Resources Ministry (MOHR) to temporarily halt the foreign worker application process from Aug 15 (Monday) to 31 as it t would disrupt the pace of business recovery.
In urging the authorities to maintain the current application procedure and conditions, FMM’s president Tan Sri Soh Thian Lai said the current state of labour shortage is extremely serious and impacting the ability of businesses to fulfil orders with fears of losing orders and/or customers or face stiff penalties for delays.
“This announcement on the impending changes to the procedure has created much confusion as well as anxiety among the industry,” he outlined in a media statement.
“(This is given) many employers are still in the process of replacing their workers who have left during the pandemic period following the freeze in recruitment for a two-year period while others are in the process of expansion due to increase in demand and the need to fulfil backlog in orders.”
The affected procedure includes the decentralisation of the interview process via the one-stop centre at state labour offices to allow the industry a seamless process of foreign worker application.
The cessation of the application process for foreign workers within the said period is to enable the revision to the application procedure for foreign workers following amendments to the Employment Act 1955 which will come into force on Sept 1 and that the new procedure for the application of foreign worker effective Sept 1 will be notified in the near future.
The following are the rationale behind FMM’s request for the current foreign worker application procedure to be maintained:
- The decentralisation of the interview process via the one-stop centre at the state labour offices which was only just introduced from Aug is very facilitative to address the bottleneck in the interview process and ease the travelling and congestion at the MOHR one-stop centre at Putrajaya.
- The frequent suspension of the processing of foreign worker applications (last suspension was from June 1 to June 15) is very disruptive to the planning by industries to get their workers in during this very critical period where they continue to face numerous operational challenges (labour shortage is impairing their ability to operate at maximum capacity towards business recovery).
- Employers require more time for submitting their applications as worker requirements are dependent on projects and orders. The stoppage and any changes to the procedure will derail the manpower planning of the industry leading to their inability to fulfil their projects and orders.
- There are still many applications pending processing and approval but the industry requires a very efficient processing system for a quick turnaround on the applications. – Aug 13, 2022
