PARLIAMENT | There are over 1.78 million legal migrant workers currently in Malaysia, Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi revealed today.

In a written parliamentary reply in his capacity as Home Minister, he said this figure is based on statistics from the immigration department as of 30 June this year.

The following is a breakdown of the figure of legal foreign labour by country of origin.

Zahid was responding to Teresa Kok (DAP-Seputeh) who wanted a breakdown of migrant workers in the country.

The immigration department is currently cracking down on foreign labour who do not have visas or work permits.

In January this year, immigration director-general Mustafar Ali announced that the government had agreed to issue temporary cards or E-cards to enable employers to

Mustafar had said that the application for the E-card - which would function as a temporary verification to replace valid travel documents - would open from Feb 15 to June 30 at all Immigration offices in Peninsular Malaysia.

Following this, the immigration department launched a nationwide crackdown on undocumented migrant workers from the stroke of midnight on June 30.

At the time, Mustafar said only 155,680 undocumented migrants working for 26,957 employers had registered themselves for the opportunity to be legally rehired as to work in five sectors - construction, plantation, services, manufacturing, and agriculture.