PUTRAJAYA, Dec 3 — The government could lift the embargo on foreign labour hire if companies are willing to fund the deportation costs of undocumented migrants, Home Minister Datuk Seri Hamzah Zainuddin said today.
The proposal, subject to Cabinet approval, is a trade off aimed at cutting detention costs, Hamzah said.
“You send back one, we let you hire one,” he told reporters here.
The Home Ministry is one of two ministries that form a committee tasked to revamp the migrant worker hiring system.
The Human Resources Ministry, the panel’s co-chair, froze foreign labour hiring in July in a bid to boost employment for locals.
The Covid-19 outbreak had left up to 100,000 jobless by September, the ministry revealed in Parliament earlier this week, although some independent economists have estimated it could be more than four times the official figures.
The committee’s proposal likely came on the back of pressure from industries reeling from the hiring ban. Cheap foreign labour form the core workforce for key sectors like construction and agriculture.
Hamzah suggested the proposed trade-off as a win-all solution for both the government and private sector.
“We thought this was good in a way [for them] to help the government so we can reduce the cost [to maintain] the depots,” he said.
Rights groups estimated there are over 15,000 migrants currently held in the main detention depots nationwide.
Hamzah said the government could allow a quarter of them to be rehired. He was unclear when asked why the rest were not eligible for employment.
“Only 15 per cent are suitable for employment, the rest can’t be rehired because of many reasons,” he said.
“For example, some of them are caught stealing, we can’t allow them to work. Then others have committed various immigration offences,” the minister added.
