Dependency of foreign workers in Malaysian construction industry / Mohd Arif Marhani ... [et al.]

The Malaysian construction industry plays an important role in generating wealth to the country and
development of social and economic infrastructures and buildings. Due to unpleasant working
conditions and availability of cheap foreign workers, majority of the construction companies preferred
to hire them. Thus, the numbers of foreign workers has increased. In addition, employment of foreign
workers has affected the economic growth, health and social problems such as malaria and cholera and
robberies. This paper intends to identify the dependency factors of Malaysian construction companies
on foreign workers in construction industry, the problems and also the effects of employment of them.
The opinions and views of related construction companies were obtained from the questionnaire surveys
and structured interviews which have been identified to give a clearer picture of the current situation of
dependency level of foreign workers in Malaysia. It was found that low wages, longer working hours,
higher education level by the local, availability of foreign workers and 3D’s (dirty, difficult and
dangerous) environment of site contributes to the problems of the foreign workers. It is important for
the government to tighten the hiring rules of foreign workers and strengthening the national security,
implementing the Industrialised Building System (IBS) and fully utilized the Construction Labour
Exchange Centre Berhad (CLAB) and also the Construction Academy of Malaysia (CAM).