Malaysia to recruit 500,000 Bangladeshi workers through private agencies this year

Malaysia will recruit 500,000 low-skilled workers from Bangladesh under the new business-to-business (B2B) mechanism that engages manpower agencies this year.

The expatriates’ welfare and overseas employment ministry said in a media release on Wednesday that the workers will be taken from the existing database of 1.4 million.

Malaysian Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi confirmed the recruitment through private agencies in a meeting with Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister Khandker Mosharraf Hossain at Putrajaya in Malaysia, the release said.

The database was made for a government-to-government (G2G) recruitment agreement.

Around 600,000 workers from Bangladesh are currently working in Malaysia, one of the biggest labour markets of Bangladesh.

After a long break, Malaysia resumed import of workforce from Bangladesh for its plantation sector under the G2G mechanism in 2013.

But Bangladeshis are not eager to work in the plantation sector.

The government had set a target to send 50,000 workers every six months at the time, but sent only 7,000 in past two years, according to the Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET).

Later, the government started considering inclusion of the private recruiters by reforming the G2G process.

Minister Mosharraf Hossain went to Kuala Lumpur with a seven-strong delegation on Tuesday to discuss the matter.

He is also scheduled to meet Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak.