KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 3 — Malaysia still lacks the approximately one million foreign workers needed to sustain various sectors’ needs post-pandemic this year, the Association of Employment Agencies (Papa) has said.

Papa president Datuk Foo Yong Hooi said foreign labour demand is critical in several sectors, especially construction, agriculture, services and manufacturing, which are crucial to jumpstart the country’s economy.

Foo told Utusan Malaysia the number of registered foreign workers declined to around 900,000 during the government-imposed movement control order (MCO) in 2020 as compared to the 2.2 million-strong labour workforce before the pandemic.

"The construction sector lacks about 300,000 workers, agriculture about 230,000 workers, whereas manufacturing about 100,000 to 200,000 workers.

"The service sector also lacks about 100,000 workers. Therefore, it is estimated at least 800,000 to a million foreign workers are needed,” he said.

On December 9, Home Minister Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail said currently, there are a total of 1.4 million foreign workers on a temporary work pass in the country.

The figure includes labour for the manufacturing sector (510,507), construction (308,886), services (208,425) and agriculture (110,598).

Foo also said he was prepared to meet with both the Home and Human Resources Ministries to resolve the foreign worker shortage.

He said the government must relax the existing procedure for hiring foreign workers, saying prospective employers had to deal with too much red tape.

"Maybe the government can relook the formula for foreign labour demand by increasing the limit to 25 per cent of the overall workforce involving locals as compared to 15 per cent at the moment.

"Since we have about 16 million people in Malaysia’s total workforce, then the maximum foreign labour workforce is projected to be around 2.4 million people,” he said.