PETALING JAYA: Former finance minister Lim Guan Eng has described the worker shortage in the country as a “great economic threat” and accused human resources minister M Saravanan of sleeping on the job instead of addressing the crisis.
He said there would be a “severe effect” on the country’s gross domestic product if Putrajaya did not solve the problem urgently.
His remarks followed reports that the labour shortage in the electronics industry could severely reduce the country’s revenue.
Lim said the shortage had caused a loss of productivity, discouraged potential investors and affected economic growth.
The labour crisis has forced manufacturers in the electrical and electronics (E&E) sector to turn down orders valued at millions of ringgit.
The shortage is so acute that executives and senior-level managers are being roped in to tend to production lines at factories.
Lim said investors would see this as a disincentive and the GDP would be “severely affected” as a result.
“The human resources ministry must urgently step in and fill the gap as this is a great economic threat to our country,” he told FMT.
“This is not just in the electronics industry but in various other industries, too, including hospitality.
“Saravanan should not be sleeping on the job. He must get out and address this quickly. Otherwise, he should try working at the production line of a factory for a day to feel the suffering of manufacturers.”
Lim suggested that the process of hiring foreign workers be decentralised to the state labour offices and online systems be used for their registration.
He said having states handle the process would help reduce the load at the ministry level and cut red tape.
FMT recently reported that the country’s chipmakers were forced to reject orders due to a problem in staffing, partially driven by the freeze on the migrant worker intake.
The freeze was lifted on Aug 19, but it is expected to take time for the workers to arrive.
It is feared that labour supply risks could deter new E&E investment, prompt existing investors to exit and sideline Malaysia from the global supply chain.
The labour shortage could curb the momentum of E&E exports, which rose by 18% from RM386 billion in 2020 to RM456 billion in 2021, generated 56% of Malaysia’s 2021 trade surplus and accounted for 6.3% of 2021’s total worldwide E&E exports.
The E&E industry in Malaysia already hosts six of 12 of the world’s largest semiconductor companies and three out of the nine largest LED companies. The strain on resources, including the labour pipeline, will be exacerbated as new investment pours in and existing players expand operations to cater to increased international orders for chips.
Recently, thousands of employers queued at the human resources ministry for worker quotas to be dispensed to them but were turned away. Many of those interviewed earlier have not received any response to their applications. - FMT
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