KUALA LUMPUR: Outsourcing Malaysia (OM) has strongly advocated the government review the curtail of highly skilled expatriates into Malaysia as it will adversely impact the global business services (GBS) industry.
This follows the recent announcement by Human Resource Minister, M. Kula Segaran to abolish Category II and Category III employment passes for expatriates.
OM chairman, Cheah Kok Hoong said the abolishment would impact the GBS industry as the skill sets required were multi-faceted, highly skilled, highly specialised and niche.
OM – an initiative of the outsourcing industry and a chapter of National ICT Association of Malaysia - also supports government consideration for a holistic strategy to identify high level and high impact occupations to the industry.
While the OM understands the government’s long-term intention of not relying heavily on foreign workers, it believes that an immediate sweeping policy of curtailing expatriates from the country will affect the good business standing, impact on foreign direct investment and the country’s economy.
Ultimately, it will also lead to a loss of jobs as foreign companies will move to destinations that are more conducive, it notes.
OM chapter represents the GBS community in driving, promoting and developing Malaysia’s business services industry.
The GBS industry in Malaysia is estimated to be US$6 billion at the compound annual growth rate of 10 to 15 per cent per annum and offering more than 100,000 jobs. (US$1 = RM4.06)
A.T. Kearney has also ranked Malaysia in third place consistently since 2007, behind India and China in the Global Services Location Index for offshoring destination of choice.
Although being a smaller economy and population size to India and China, Malaysia has clear competitive advantages in terms of political stability, strategic locality, relatively lower cost of doing business and multilingual and cultural environment.– Bernama
