Oil palm plantations are losing up to RM70 million a month because of labour shortages after hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants were expelled, a report said today.

"The losses are due to the shortage of workers available to harvest oil palm fruits which are highly perishable," Malaysian Employers' Federation executive director Shamsuddin Bardan told the New Straits Times .

The repatriation of some 400,000 illegal immigrants, mainly low-wage Indonesian workers, during a four-month amnesty that ended in March has left a yawning labour gap in Malaysia's agricultural, construction, manufacturing and services sectors.

It has led to industry losses running into hundreds of millions of dollars and sparked fears it may exacerbate a slowdown in economic growth, which is seen at 5.0-6.0 percent this year, down from 7.1 percent in 2004, analysts say.

Labour crunch

The government has devised a scheme under which expelled illegal workers would be processed in Indonesia and re-admitted to Malaysia as legal employees but has complained of delays in the system and has begun recruiting workers from other countries.

It has agreed to take in 100,000 Pakistanis and 1,100 have already arrived in the country, Deputy Home Affairs Minister Tan Chai Ho told the NST .

Malaysia is also seeking workers from India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Burma and Vietnam to alleviate the acute labour crunch.

The departure of illegal immigrants caused a shortage of some 200,000 workers in the manufacturing sector, 150,000 in construction, 50,000 in plantations and 20,000 in the services sector, the cabinet has been told.