'Reduce dependence on foreign labour'

Outspoken MCA deputy president Dr Chua Soi Lek today slammed the government for not having a clear policy on foreign workers in the country.

According to him, the government should take immediate measures to reduce the more than 400,000 foreign workers in the country by 2010, as announced by Deputy Minister Najib Abdul Razak in his Budget 2009 RM7 billion stimulus package.

"The government should have a clear mechanism on how to reduce these foreign workers by then because he (Najib) did not provide any concise or detailed information on how to implement it," Chua told a press conference in Wisma MCA today.

Chua added that if concrete measures are not outlined, Malaysians would suffer, especially in the wake of the current global economic slowdown.

Explaining this, Chua, who is chairperson of MCA’s government policy monitoring bureau, said in an economic crisis, local workers were always the first ones to be retrenched.

"Generally the locals are paid much higher than the foreign workers. In order to cut cost, they (private sectors) retrench the locals first," said Chua, stressing that the country’s economic growth could dip even further if this is not prevented.

Monitor retrenchment

Chua also suggested that the government take a step in the right direction by implementing a job conversion system to help local workers in case they are retrenched.

The system, he said, could easily be in place if the government optimised the RM300 million allocated in the stimulus package to training employees.

"In Singapore, this type of training is very famous. Say, if you are retrenched as a clerk and want to move on to be a retailer, you would have to attend a short course, for about 40 days.

"They also have professional job conversions, for example if you were a manager before being retrenched and you want to be a teacher after that, you could go for an 18-month to two-year training course," explained Chua.

He added that the government should also provide detailed information to the related sectors in the country on how to curb retrenchment among local workers.

"If there is no clear mechanism to monitor retrenchment, MCA is worried because it is the rakyat who will be the first to be retrenched because they are paid higher," stressed Chua.