In the last few months, Malaysia, an Asian hub for multinational companies, has been suffering through a period of slowing overseas exports and slackening domestic economic activity.
“We didn’t find any evidence that Nepali workers would fall victim to mass layoffs in Malaysia, as most of the Nepali workers in Malaysia work lower-end jobs that native Malays don’t like to take up,” said Yuvraj Pandey, secretary of the Ministry of Labor and Transport Management, on his return, on Thursday, after a ten-day visit of Malaysia, Bangladesh and the Philippines.
Pandey had led a Nepali delegation to those countries to assess the condition of Nepali workers in Malaysia and to study the experiences of laborers in Bangladesh and the Philippines, both countries that export labor.
But Pandey did have some bad news to relay to the people in Nepal. “Cases of Nepalis receiving lower wages than had been agreed upon and the laborers’ working hours being reduced by employers—which result in reduced earnings for the workers—are rife in Malaysia,” said Pandey.
And that wasn’t all. Pandey also said that Nepali workers in Malaysia could lose even more working hours in the coming days.
Because of the decreasing labor demand, the number of workers flying to Malaysia has sharply dropped to 1,516 during the period spanning mid-February to mid- March this year, as compared to 5,389 for the same period last fiscal year. A total of 30,238 Nepali workers left for Malaysia during the last eight months of the current fiscal year, while the number was 35,136 for last year.
Pandey also said that despite the Malaysian government’s issuing a ban on fresh recruitment for its service and manufacturing sectors, scores of Nepali were still making their way to Malaysia, by finding jobs through personal contacts.
“We encountered at least 50 Nepali workers at Kuala Lumpur airport who had managed to get to Malaysia on the strength of personal connections,” said Pandey.
Three months ago, Malaysia had closed the door to foreign workers in the manufacturing and service sectors, which account for more than 90 percent of the Nepali workers in Malaysia; more than 300,000 Nepali are employed in Malaysia today. Amid growing incidents of Nepali workers being exploited by Malaysian employers, Nepal and Malaysia have agreed in principle to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to secure the rights of Nepali workers in Malaysia.
“Hopefully, we will sign the MoU by the end of July; Malaysian officials are, after all, also interested in speeding up the process,” said Pandey.
The process of signing a labor pact with Malaysia had hit a snag last year when Malaysia laid down a pre-condition for recruitment: Malaysia had demanded that Nepal allow Malaysia to create a recruitment base staffed by Malaysian officials, right here in Nepal, through which Malaysian officials would recruit Nepali workers.
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