Malaysia Contractors Face Serious Labour Shortage
About 10,000 contractors affiliated to the United Malaysia Contractors Association are facing a serious labour shortage as a result of the freeze on the hiring of new foreign workers. Some of them have to make their workers work for up to 16 hours a day, Nanyang Siang Pau reported today.
The association’s members are mostly small and medium contractors who, in order to meet project deadlines, are forced to fork out high overtime wages to keep their workers toiling beyond the normal hours.
The association deems the situation unhealthy as working long hours over the long term would give rise to health and safety issues.
The association’s second vice-president, Liang Gan Qiang, told the daily that as Malaysians were reluctant to work at construction sites, its members were forced to hire foreign workers.
He disclosed that in the past, Indonesians made up the bulk of this workforce but the situation had changed and most of the workers involved in small and medium construction projects now were Bangladeshis.
Liang said these Bangladeshis worked not only up to 16 hours a day but also on Sunday at times, when given the chance, so as to send more money home.
“They are taking home thousands of ringgit a month, several times more than the minimum wage mandated by the government,” he said.
Liang urged the government to rethink the “freeze on hiring of new foreign workers” policy, saying it had already affected thousands of small and medium contractors in the country.
He said the rule to bar foreign workers from being hired for more than five years would cause a “drain of skilled workers”.
He explained that the majority of these workers were untrained when they were brought in and it would take years for them to become skilled workers.
News Source: thesundaily.my