Migration in Malaysia: employers’ responsibilities and inequality perspective in laws / Rohani Abdul Rahim, Siti Awanis Othman and Fazida Othman

The relationship between migration and development is close and complex. International migration has to a certain extent contributed to the economic development of Malaysia. The push factors of the migrant country and the pull factors of the recipient country in the case of Malaysia resulted in huge influx of foreign workers. However there has been acrimonious debate on the issue which attracted the attention of various groups of people in the country. While the conservative critics identify foreign workers as a great threat to the Malaysian economy, society and culture, the liberals often rationalize their existence with a positive argument that Malaysia requires them for the national infrastructure development. These issues can have negative impact on both sending and receiving countries; it can also put the local employers in a difficult situation where they have huge responsibilities towards the nations and of course their employees as well; in this case, the migrant workers. Employers are always seen to be at the advantaged position while the employees or migrant workers are always the victims. Owing to bureaucracy, the employers often find the legal procedures of importing workers are lengthy and tedious process. In addition to that, employees are often not up to the employer’s or sector’s expectation where semi-skilled or unskilled workers are sent and not the skilled ones. Training the unskilled workers will take time and of course incur expenditure. Employers are also at risks of losing the trained and skilled workers to the employers who offer better salary and working environment. This paper focuses on the responsibilities and inequality from the perspectives of laws and justice in relation to employing migrant workers. It is hope that these discussions and suggestions will have positive impact - economically, socially and politically.