PETALING JAYA: The Government must improve salaries and benefits of blue-collar workers if it wants to attract locals and reduce the country's dependence on foreign workers.
Malaysian Trades Union Congress (MTUC) vice-president Mohd Roszali Majid welcomed the Government's announcement that the over one million job vacancies it had identified would be offered to locals first.
Just do it: Mustafa tells locals to “meet the challenge”.
The 1,051,427 job vacancies are in five main sectors manufacturing, plantation, agriculture, construction and production.
Roszali said the Government must improve the “overall package” for local workers including housing, medical, and transport benefits.
National Union of Plantation Workers (NUPW) secretary-general Datuk G. Sankaran urged the Government to set a decent salary for plantation workers as there was no replacement for older workers who had retired.
“Young people prefer factory jobs but there are so many vacancies in plantations. We badly need local workers,” he said.
Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers president Tan Sri Mustafa Mansur urged local workers to “meet the challenge”.
He said higher salaries would depend on their skills, pointing out that highly-skilled construction and factory workers in Europe were well-paid.
“If they don't take up the jobs, we will continue to have a problem of too many foreign workers in the country,” he said.
Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin said he hoped the Government would proactively find Malaysians to fill the vacancies and not just pay “lip service” by hiring illegal immigrants instead.
He said the Government had to try and encourage locals to venture into these job sectors, especially unemployed youths.
Jobstreet.com country manager Chook Yuh Yng said locals were likely to take up these jobs if the wages were fair.
She said this was imperative as the cost of living was going up.
Recruiter Royce Cheah said locals in rural areas should be more willing to take up these jobs.
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