Malaysia rejects claim of hiring 200,000 Bangladeshis

The Malaysian government on Wednesday rejected claims that it had agreed to recruit 200,000 Bangladeshi workers within the next six months, saying no such decision had been taken.

The clarification came two days after a Bangladeshi state minister said Malaysia would hire 200,000 Bangladeshi workers within the next six months following a meeting with Malaysian High Commissioner to Bangladesh, Mohd Shuhada Othman, at the Secretariat on Sunday.

“It does not represent the official decision of the Malaysian government. That is what the Human Resources Minister informed me. So, it is not an official position,” Fahmi Fadzil, spokesman for the Malaysian government, told reporters at his weekly press conference in Kuala Lumpur.

He said Human Resources Minister R Ramanan had informed him that the statement was made by a junior minister and should not be considered an official declaration by the Malaysian government.

Meanwhile, a senior official of the Bangladesh High Commission in Kuala Lumpur, speaking to the Daily Sun on condition of anonymity, said the state minister’s remarks were misleading.

The Foreign Worker Centralised Management System (FWCMS), an integrated digital platform operated by Bestinet that handles the recruitment, processing and monitoring of migrant workers in Malaysia, initially published a list of 25 recruiting agencies on 21 August.

Later, on 27 August, 250 agencies were designated as “associate recruitment agencies”, with 10 agencies operating under each of the 25 agencies. Another 62 agencies were identified as associates of the government-run recruiting agency Bangladesh Overseas Employment and Services Ltd (BOESL).

The FWCMS selected the recruiting agencies from a list of 423 agencies sent by the Bangladesh government.

Since then, recruiting agency owners who have been unable to confirm their positions on the list have described the arrangement as a “syndicate”, although Malaysia has agreed to recruit 10,000 Bangladeshi workers at zero cost at Bangladesh’s request.

In 2021, Malaysia signed agreements with 16 countries, including Bangladesh, to recruit foreign workers. The agreement is set to expire in December this year, while the remaining quota for Bangladesh is reportedly only 15,000 workers.

Therefore, the prospect of recruiting an additional 10,000 Bangladeshi workers appears slim. If the remaining 15,000-worker quota is shared among all 16 countries, Bangladesh’s share could be only 1,000 to 2,000 workers.

As a result, it remains uncertain how many Bangladeshi workers will ultimately be able to go to Malaysia.