Employers urged to review salaries of locals

The Ministry of Human Resources on Thursday urged private sector employers to review salaries offered to locals, making them more attractive, so that they can fill jobs vacated by foreigners.

Its minister Datuk Dr S. Subramaniam said if the salaries were not attractive enough, Malaysians would opt to work abroad where the remuneration was much better.

If the salaries go up, it would later attract more locals to work in filling up the vacant jobs left by the foreign workers,” he told reporters after opening the 5th annual general meeting of the Federal Accreditation Centre of the Malaysian Skills Department Centre here on Thursday.

At the same time, he urged Malaysians who lost their jobs as a result of the current economic crisis “not to be too picky” as the government had lined up retraining programmes and other assistance for them.

He also said the increase in the foreign worker levy as announced in the mini budget on Tuesday would cause industries to lose more foreign workers because of the factor of affordability.

The Manpower Department was also redoubling efforts to help jobless Malaysians find jobs, he said, adding that some 25,000 people had registered at its jobs portal in search of jobs.

He added that, to date, some 100,000 Malaysian workers had been temporarily laid off while from October last year to February, the work permits of 20,000 foreigners were cancelled. – Bernama

Tags: employers, salaries

Category: Career News, Employer, Further Studies, Human Resources