Employers may be required to reserve at least 51 percent of jobs for locals as part of efforts to cut reliance on foreign workers, a deputy minister said yesterday.

Deputy Human Resources Minister Abdul Rahman Bakar said the government planned to amend the Employment Act of 1955 to reflect the new ruling.

"The move is necessary as there are still many employers who prefer to recruit foreign workers rather than locals," he was quoted as saying by the official Bernama news agency.

Abdul Rahman said the proposal for the amendment had been discussed at the ministry's post-cabinet meeting last week and would be fine-tuned before being tabled in parliament later this year.

Yawning gap

Under the proposal, he said the requirement would involve all economic sectors.

There are some 1.5 million legal foreign workers in Malaysia, and hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants mainly from neighbouring Indonesia.

Some 400,000 illegal immigrants were repatriated during a four-month amnesty that ended in February, but it left a yawning labour gap in Malaysia's agricultural, construction, manufacturing and services sectors.

The government, which is now pursuing some 500,000 illegal immigrants believed to be still in the country, announced last week it would immediately begin recruiting workers from Pakistan, India, Burma, Nepal and Vietnam to plug the vacuum.

Abdul Rahman said the ministry had launched job recruitment fairs nationwide to help locals find work but he urged Malaysians not to be too picky and demanding.