KUCHING: Malaysian employers can afford a smile now following Indonesia’s recent announcement to lift a freeze on sending its migrant workers to Malaysia effective Aug 1.
They have reacted positively to Jakarta’s announcement.
Committee member of Kuching Coffeeshop and Restaurants Owners Association Kapitan Tan Yit Sheng and secretary-general of Sarawak Business Federation (SBF) Datuk Jonathan Chai said plantation, construction, and food and beverages industries which were facing acute labour shortage could now hire workers from Indonesia.
“From a business person’s point of view, especially kopitiam operators, we welcome the Indonesian government’s lifting of its temporary ban of workers to Malaysia,” said Tan.
Chai said this was an “initial, yet an important step of a whole, difficult process”.
Chipped in Tan: “We need government agencies such as the Immigration Department as well as the Labour Department to work closely together and help to expedite the process of the issuance of the work permit to these workers.
“We hope the state government will simplify procedures for our industries to get general workers from Indonesia as there are a lot of restrictions to hire foreign workers. This is tedious and takes a lot of time and money.”
Chai said that from the perspective of employees, he would like to see an expansion of source countries of foreign workers so that they did not have to depend almost entirely on the supply of workers from Indonesia.
“Possibly we could consider workers from countries like Bangladesh and Myanmar too.”
He also hope that the autonomy of issuing work permits could be reverted to Sarawak so that the bureaucratic red tape could be reduced to expedite the process of obtaining the requisite approval for work permits.
“Until the adoption of an automated or robotic processes by our local industries, we will still depend heavily on the services of the foreign workers,” Chai said.
Tan stressed that foreign workers would boost the state’s economy.
Last week, Human Resources Minister Datuk Seri M. Saravanan said Jakarta had agreed to resume sending its workers after Putrajaya and Jakarta agreed to trial a single channel to facilitate the recruitment and entry of Indonesian workers.
