Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi's challenge for youths to take up "dirty jobs" and reduce dependence on foreign labours is realistic, Youth and Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said today.

"Young Malaysians, they don't want to take up jobs that are being offered to foreign workers.

"Especially jobs that are dangerous and dirty," said Khairy during a press conference after delivering his closing speech at the National Aspiration and Leadership Summit 2016 in PWTC.

He, however, did not address how to change youth attitudes towards these jobs currently filled by migrant workers.

At an event earlier today, Zahid had addressed concerns about plans to bring in 1.5 million Bangladeshis to work in Malaysia over the next several years.

Asked on this, Khairy said he viewed Zahid's statement explains the labour demand issues.

"The proposal (on 1.5 million Bangladeshis) has triggered a lot of reaction.

"What was said by the DPM (Zahid) is demand for manual labourers in estates, construction sites and service industries. Areas where there is no demand (for jobs) from local workers.

"If Malaysian youths are willing to work as manual labour in construction sites and estates then of course we can reduce our reliance on foreign labour," he said.

At the same time, Khairy said the government is also promoting growth of industries that would be less dependent on manual labour.

"But you can't replace everything with automation for example on construction sites and estates," he added.

'Look beyond the year 2020'

Earlier in his speech, Khairy said that youths must be willing to look beyond Vision 2020, promoted as the "end point" for Malaysia as a high-income developed nation.

"Now we are just around the corner from the Year 2020 so if we don't start a conversation on what goes on beyond 2020, we will not have a collective debate on what kind of country we will be after that," he told the audience of more than 2,000 participants.

Among issues that need to be addressed, Khairy said, would be the fact that Malaysia still ranked lower than neighbouring countries such as Singapore and Thailand in terms of national minimum wage and overall productivity growth.

He also added that there must be policies put in place to reduce the country's over dependency on oil and gas, as well as mining, as its main source of revenue.

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