Malaysia enforces employment under Recalibration Programme

Employers need to hire the 280,088 foreign workers who have been registered under the Labour Recalibration Programme (RTK) within two weeks.
By: | December 3, 2021
Topics: Compliance | Malaysia | News | Recruitment

Minister for home affairs Datuk Seri Hamzah Zainudin said employers concerned must “immediately employ” the workers who have been registered under the RTK programme and listed as legal foreign workers.

“I want to see that all of them are employed in our country and issued a valid PLKS (Temporary Employment Visit Pass). That’s what we want to do,” he said after launching the Expatriate Services Division (ESD) Satellite Centre (ESC) at Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) recently.

Out of the 280,088 foreign workers who have registered under the RTK programme, over 120,000 are involved in the plantation sector, but this number only represents between 20% and 30% of the manpower required by the country’s plantation sector, said Hamzah.

Hamzah also said that the government had agreed to allow the entry of foreign workers with special exemptions to meet the manpower needs of the plantation sector, especially in the palm oil business. Nevertheless, the Minister said, “To be realistic, 32,000 is not enough for our plantations here, we actually need a much bigger number.”

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However, the minister said even though it has been announced that 32,000 foreign workers will be brought in, it has been over a month and not one has arrived, according to Bernama.