Cabinet to decide whether or not to trim country’s dependence on foreign labour – Ismail Sabri

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Ismail Sabri says Malaysia needs foreign labour because the number of local workers is insufficient to meet the demand of the workforce required. — Bernama photo

KUCHING: The Cabinet will have to discuss and make a decision later whether or not to trim the country’s dependence on foreign labour, said Senior Minister (Security Cluster) Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob.

He said Malaysia needed foreign labour because the number of local workers was insufficient to meet the demand of the workforce required.

Despite so, the current Covid-19 pandemic might lead to a new perspective but this would have to be deliberated at a future Cabinet meeting, he said when responding to questions during the daily update press conference in Putrajaya today.

At present, Malaysia records about 3.3 million foreign labour nationwide with most of them in the plantation industry. In Singapore, it has been reported that the majority of the Covid-19 positive individuals are foreign workers.

Ismail Sabri said the issue of foreign labour involved the Ministry of Human Resources and Home Ministry.

“We will discuss whether to change the policy, a Cabinet meeting will have to touch on this issue soon before making a decision.”

Meanwhile, the Defence Minister said the National Security Council (MKN) is still fine tuning the standard operating procedures (SOP) on the movement of Malaysians during the Movement Control Order (MCO) enforcement.

He said MKN would decide on different SOP for journey among green zones.

He stressed that no travel to red zones would be permitted, not even a red zone to another red zone.

“A green zone to other green zones are allowed. A green zone to a red zone will not be allowed,” he added.

According to Ismail Sabri, the government has started distributing face masks to Malaysians across the country including Sarawak and Sabah.

He said the face masks had been sent to Sarawak and Sabah last week, and the distributions in East Malaysia should be in the process.

“But as we all know, Sabah and Sarawak are not like Peninsular Malaysia. You need to use long boats to reach some of the districts or remote areas.

“In Semenanjung (Peninsular Malaysia), we have nearly completed the distribution of face masks. Perhaps some of those at the district level have not got theirs, but the distribution process will be completed next week,” he added.