‘Difficult to replace skilled foreign workers with locals’

Opportunities for overtime and training are opening up for local workers as employers rush to overcome a shortage of skilled and semi-skilled foreign workers.

Workers like barbers and goldsmiths in niche but non-essential sub-sectors are getting a lot of overtime pay while being put under the tutelage of skilled foreign workers to get their skills up to par.

Barber shop operator S. Buvaneswaran, 35, has interviewed many locals who are mostly working as food delivery riders.

He has offered locals good pay with fringe benefits and the chance to be taught by skilled Indian barbers, but the take-up rate is low.

“Barbers from India are highly skilled and hardworking,” said Buvaneswaran, who has six barber shops in Seberang Prai.

Jeweller Mubarak Ali, 60, said his company had been focusing on recruiting locals to be trained by Indian goldsmiths.

“In our Penang shops, we have seven local workers and each is trained by our foreign workers from India, who are experts in goldsmithing and sales.”

He said training local talent was a good option to reduce dependence on foreign workers.

However, Mubarak said the skills of local workers were not up to the mark.

Hence, he hoped the government would give approval for more Indian goldsmiths to be employed.

“We need workers with high-level skills in repairing and designing jewellery products.”

Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers (FMM) Penang chapter chairman Datuk Lee Teong Li said there was a shortage of foreign workers in the manufacturing sector.

“To cope, industries are giving their workers more overtime pay.”

He said some FMM member companies had made a huge effort to attract local workers but he foresaw a tough situation for next year.

On Oct 13, Home Minister Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail announced that the second Labour Recalibration Programme (RTK 2.0) would end on Dec 31.

Under RTK 2.0, 518,000 undocumented migrants were issued work permits and channelled into the manufacturing, construction, farming, agriculture and services sectors.

Saifuddin said the programme had provided the sectors with the workers needed to jumpstart the economy post-Covid-19 pandemic.

He said employers who intended to hire under the programme still had two months to register their foreign workers.

The RTK was implemented to allow employers in certain sectors to legally employ undocumented foreign workers.