CURRENT TRENDS IN TRANSNATIONAL FLOWS IN MALAYSIA:
ISSUES, POLICY AND CHALLENGES
Azizah Kassim1
Abstract
In the last 40 years there has seen a substantial increase in Malaysia’s
foreign pop. According to the last national census in 2010, out of a pop of
28.4 million, over 8.3% are non-citizens. The increase is mainly the result of
labour inflow since the early 1970s due to Malaysia’s relatively better
economic development and political stability which attract economic
migrants and asylum seekers from within and outside the ASEAN region.
This paper which focuses on current transnational flows in the country has
the following objectives:
1. To provide an overview of transnational population flows in Malaysia in
the last decade and identify major streams that are causing considerable
concern to the state and the Malaysian public. The focus is on the low
skill foreign workers, the largest category of migrants in Malaysia.
2. To examine public perceptions of foreign workers, how such
perceptions are formed and what their impacts are on state policy.
3. To discuss the state policy on foreign workers, both legal and irregular,
the objective of the policy and its strategies.
4. To highlight the challenges faced by the state in implementing the
foreign worker policy.
5. To evaluate the achievement and shortcomings of the policy.
The writer identifies five types of transnational inflows into Malaysia i.e.
that of low skill migrant workers both legal and irregular; asylum seekers;
expatriates; foreign students; and participants of Malaysia’s My Second
Home (MM2H) project. Since 2007, these flows are taking place while
Malaysia is actively promoting its tourism industry, by among other means,
1
Azizah Kassim, Principal Research Fellow, IKMAS, UKM
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relaxing immigration controls such as by introducing visa on arrival
procedure to tourists from certain countries. She lumps these inflows into
two categories: firstly, what she terms as “welcome inflows” comprising
expatriates, participants of Malaysia My Second Home (MM2H) project and
foreign students; and secondly, “problematic inflows” involving legal and
irregular foreign workers and asylum seekers. The paper is confined to the
latter which accounts for about 98% of the foreign workforce in the
country. Malaysia now has over 1.57 million legally recruited foreign
workers from 14 countries who are employed in six sectors – construction,
manufacturing, domestic maids, agriculture, plantations and services. It
also has over 1.3 million irregular migrants of which 1.13million are in the
workforce in addition to over 100,000 asylum seekers mainly from
Myanmar. In previous decades irregular migrants arrived clandestinely and
were undocumented, now most of them are pass abusers coming in on
tourist or studen visa to overcome the time consuming bureaucratic
procedures and the high cost of legal recruitment.
In examining public perceptions of this problematic inflows of
foreign workers (which include asylum seekers), the writer notes that such
perceptions are fragmented and shaped by individual experience with
foreign workers, direct interest in their employment, and by economics,
political and/or socio-cultural context. While acknowledging the positive
contributions made by foreign workers to Malaysia’s economic and social
development, public perceptions on foreign workers in Malaysia appear
largely negative and such perceptions which are often expressed in the
national print and electronic media, in turn, shape state policy. The writer
elaborates on the negative impact of foreign worker employment from the
economic, political, security and social perspectives and explains how the
state comes to grasp with these issues.
Malaysia introduced its guideline on recruitment and employment of
foreign workers (now popularly referred to as the foreign worker policy) in
early 1990’s. The policy which has two inter-related objectives : to regulate
the inflow of foreign workers and encourage legal recruitment; and to curb
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the expansion of irregular workers receives severe criticism from many
quarters. Many academics and non-government organisations at the local
and international levels view its implementation as a failure. The writer
argues that the policy is partially successful in attaining its first objective.
The number of legal workers increased from over 532,700 in 1993 to over
1.4 million in 2002 and reached its peak at over 2.04 million in 2007.
Thenceforth their number declined gradually during the Asian financial
crises and economic slowdown in the subsequent years as well as due to
concerted effort by the government to reduce their number, to 1.57 million
in 2012.In terms of curbing the expansion of irregular migrants, it has failed
miserably. The number of illegal migrants escalated and remained
consistently high in the last three decades. Over five million irregular
migrants have been identified by the state since 1992 in addition to those
still at large whose number cannot be ascertained.
The writer contends that the failure is attributable to a number of
factors. The policy on foreign workers has in-built weaknesses. Some of its
terms and conditions are counterproductive – e.g. the prohibition to marry
while the contract worker is in service and to take along family members
are openly violated as it is against basic human needs. The implementation
of the policy is riddled with problems. The long sea and land border makes
surveillance and border control acutely difficult. Kinship links between
cross border communities facilitate and abet illegal crossings, while
transnational ethnic and kinship links facilitate and abet visa abuse. The
prohibitive cost of legal recruitment and easy entry as students or tourists
induced pass abuse activities by many economic migrants. Full and
effective operation to root out irregular migrants is impossible due to their
large number and inadequate space in the KDN2 depot to accommodate
them at any one time while waiting for their case to be disposed off by the
court and prior to their deportation. There is also the problem of systemic
corruption among a few errant enforcement officers. Finally, employers and
recruiting agencies often defy or subvert policy operations with impunity.
2
KDN is the acronym for Kementerian Dalam Negeri (Ministry of Home Affairs).
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The writer contends that the issue of illegal migrants will continue
unless the state takes note of its root causes, of which the most important is
the high cost of legal recruitment. She concludes that the dependency on
foreign workers is expected to continue and it is urgent that Malaysia finds
ways to overcome the problem of irregular migrants and come up with a
policy that can be of benefit to the employers, workers, the Malaysian public
and the state.
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