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PUTRAJAYA: It has been proposed that large corporations be allowed to bring in foreign workers on the condition that they finance the repatriation of illegal immigrants detained in immigration warehouses.
It was also recommended to eliminate the hiring of foreign workers in the metals, scrap metal and used articles subsector.
These were some of the proposals discussed at the inaugural meeting of the joint committee of Ministers of Home and Human Resources held here yesterday.
Interior Minister Datuk Seri Hamzah Zainudin said a proposal for major companies to hire foreign workers with the understanding that they pay for the passage home of illegal immigrants would soon be raised in Cabinet.
“The ratio will be one to one. If a company needs to hire five foreign workers, we will allow them to do so as long as they pay to deport five illegal immigrants at immigration warehouses.
“This is one way we can solve the problem of overcrowding in warehouses,” he said after co-chairing the meeting with his HR counterpart, Datuk Seri M. Saravanan.
Hamzah explained that companies could also choose to hire people in detention centers, but said that only 15% of the population there were employable.
“There are illegal immigrants in the warehouses with criminal records and we don’t think they are employable. We are also of the opinion that those who have families should be deported, ”he said.
Regarding the hiring of foreigners in the aforementioned subsector, he said that those currently hired would cease to be employed in the next three years.
“Foreigners currently hired in the subsector will not have their work permits renewed,” he said.
There are currently 21,154 workers employed in the subsector of which 2,931 are foreigners.
The committee also agreed with the Human Resources Ministry’s proposal to postpone the implementation of the multi-level levy, which was due to take effect from January 1, to July 1 of next year.
Hamzah said the meeting agreed that the levy rate in the multi-level levy system be reviewed to ensure its effective implementation.
Saravanan said that the economic scenario due to the Covid-19 pandemic required the need to review the multi-tiered tax mechanism.
“With the delay in the mechanism, we call on industries to restructure their businesses especially in the labor aspect,” he said, adding that priority should be given to locals.
On the foreign worker-illegal immigrant recalibration program, Saravanan said the Labor Department received 134 requests from employers for the hiring of 19,734 foreign workers.
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