KUCHING: The palm oil industry in Sarawak is critically short of workers. This will cause a heavy impact on the financial performances of plantation companies as well as expected revenue in the form of cess, duties, and taxes in the coming months.
According to the Sarawak Oil Palm Plantation Owners Association (Soppoa), the shortage was estimated at more than 45,000 after the movement control order (MCO) imposed since March prevented companies from getting new workers from Indonesia.
“The palm oil industry is a major contributor to the state’s income as well as the federal government in the form of taxes and other revenues earned from the industry through export of crude palm oil (CPO).
“With the acute shortage of workers, especially harvesters and general workers, the industry will suffer from loss of crop due to non-harvesting and subsequent decline of production of CPO, which is the life line of the industry.
“Most daunting for the industry is that this shortage will be prolonged as it is estimated that the restart of intake of new foreign workers will take between six and nine months to recover from the big shortage experienced now,” said a spokesperson from Soppoa today.
Soppoa has highlighted the issue to the Ministry of Plantation Industries and Commodities and the Sarawak government on numerous occasions, to allow for recruitment of new workers to overcome the shortage but until today, the result has not been forthcoming.
“The lack of action by the authorities concerned to rectify the shortage of plantation workers in the essential service sector is a concern for the industry here and the situation will only get worse by the day as more workers are leaving due to expiry of contracts, health reasons and others, with no new recruits to take over.”
On the recent calls by the human resource ministry to recruit locals to fill up the vacancies, Soppoa fully supported the initiative and would provide training to local youths who want to take up the offer.
Those interested in trying out can contact the association or plantation companies throughout the state directly as there are plentiful of opportunities in the sector now.
Currently, locals employed in the sector are mainly in executive and administrative positions, as well as in supervisory capacities, research and development, laboratories and machine operators and still shun the 3D (dirty, difficult and dangerous) field harvesting jobs where locals only make up less than five per cent of the total harvesters.
“It is most urgent now for the relevant authorities to provide the necessary assistance to the palm oil industry at this critical time, otherwise it could severely affect the survival of the industry and future growth of the state’s economy.”
