Highly-skilled labour market needed to tackle foreign worker influx

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia needs to change from an economic structure that requires unskilled foreign workers to a highly-skilled labour market in order to tackle the influx of foreign workers.

Universiti Malaya (UM) Faculty of Economics and Administration lecturer Prof Datuk Dr Norma Mansor said this was important towards becoming a high-income nation.

"We are still attracting investment in the unskilled and semi-skilled industries so demand for cheap labour is still high. This should change to a high-technology, high-value and highly-skilled industry so that this demand drops."

"In Singapore, they emphasise on an industry that generates a highly-skilled labour market to attract foreign talent so that locals can learn from them," she said when speaking to reporters after sitting on a panel for the National Dilemma: Foreign Worker Issues and Challenges in Malaysia conference organised by the National Professors' Council (NPC) here today.

Norma said the issue on the influx of foreign workers should be viewed holistically and covering all aspects, including economy, which still relies on cheap labour.

"If we don't resolve this and only focus on security, enforcement and such, we will still be talking about the same problem 10 years from now," she added. – Bernama