Friday 29 Mar 2024
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This article first appeared in Forum, The Edge Malaysia Weekly, on March 14 - 20, 2016.

Even though the government announced on Feb 19 that it had decided to freeze all intake of foreign workers, including Bangladeshis, with immediate effect, not many would believe it.

What is needed is a proper policy on foreign workers. More importantly, what we are in dire need of today is, really, a new policy on employment — call it Employment 2.0 — that is holistic and integrated. Among others, it should include the following:

• Long-term and short-term factors that influence economic growth: Economist and author Enrico Moretti says we must focus on both “cylical change” (the ups and downs of the economy that are driven by the endless cycle of recession and expansion) and “secular change” (the long-run developments driven by deep-seated but slower-moving economic dynamics). Unfortunately, most of the current debate focuses on the former, hence, the half-baked policies on employment that come together with it.

• Mature transition of drivers of growth: Our driver of growth has shifted from agriculture to manufacturing to innovation. The question is, was our agriculture sector mature enough when we shifted to manufacturing? Were we really prepared when we embraced manufacturing? Today, is our manufacturing mature enough so that we can and are prepared to really do innovation? We must facilitate a conducive ecosystem for a natural, mature and well-prepared transition of our drivers of growth, not simply by aping the more advanced economies, while suppressing the very foundations of the innovation economy by imposing draconian laws and archaic regulations.

• New types of jobs: According to Robert Reich, former US secretary of labour, the old ladder of jobs with many levels, with the professionals (for example, engineers) and managers at the top, followed by technicians, secretarial, clerical and sales staff at the lower level, and farmers, fishermen and artisans at the bottom — with those at the top of the ladder securing the highest salary — is no longer relevant. Today, it has been replaced by a lean framework of only three levels. At the top is the “creator/innovator”, followed by the “problem-solver” and then the “routine-worker”. In this framework, you may be an engineer, but if you perform the same work every day, you are considered a routine-worker. A shoe maker who is creative may earn more than you. Our employment policy must provide for the creation of new types of jobs within a new and futuristic framework.

• Geography of jobs: According to Moretti, as we shift from agriculture to manufacturing to an innovation economy, not only does the location of the centres of growth shift from one place to another, but so do the related jobs. In an innovation economy, the presence of many university-educated residents changes the local economy in profound ways, affecting both the kind of jobs available and the productivity of every worker who lives there, including the less skilled. We must draw a big picture of our geography of jobs in order to ensure we locate the right people in the right place for better productivity, while facilitating equality between all classes of workers.

• Restructuring of certain economic sectors: If we restructure certain sectors that currently use a high number of foreign workers, for example construction, we can decrease the need for these workers. Most Class F construction licence owners depend on small projects with small profit margins. They will most likely use not only foreign workers but also illegal ones because they want to pay the lowest possible salary. What we need to do is to systematically graduate the Class F contractors to a higher level, with bigger profit margins, so that they will be motivated to hire locals.

• Automation and self-service: We used to have self-service petrol stations. What happened to that policy? Today, our petrol stations are mostly manned by Bangladeshis.

• Protection of local human resources: We need a regulation to ensure that jobs which require specific qualifications are offered to our youths who have secured the relevant certifications, and not to unqualified foreigners.

• Proper policy on foreign workers: We are not against foreign workers. What we need is a systematic employment framework that brings them into the country based on need, not greed.

• Employability of our youths: We must lessen the gap between what is taught in the classroom and what is needed in the workplace.

• Brain drain: While we must try to bring back our best brains, we must also put an end to conditions that may force them to leave. For example, every year, thousands of good Chinese students with the United Education Certificate (UEC) have to go overseas for their university education because they are not accepted by our public universities. Later, if they decide not to return and work here, we have no justification to invite them to come back.


Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah is chief secretary of Pakatan Harapan and former deputy minister of higher education. He is active on twitter: @saifuddinabd.

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