Plantation firms wary of ‘forced labour’ concerns, says minister

Plantation and commodities minister Johari Ghani said the ministry is conducting a pilot test by hiring 60 local workers specialising in harvesting to change the perception of working in the plantations.

KUALA LUMPUR: Despite the shortage of manpower, the plantation industry is wary of hiring foreign workers brought in to work in other sectors for fear these labourers would be deemed as being employed “against their will”, Johari Ghani said.

The plantation and commodities minister told the Dewan Negara that while the palm oil industry lacked almost 40,000 workers, there was a “surplus” of workers in other sectors, Bernama reported.

Johari said there was an excess of 165,497 foreign workers in the manufacturing sector, while there was an excess of 27,158 foreign workers in the services sector.

The excess of foreign workers occurred after Malaysia reopened businesses following the Covid-19 pandemic, he said.

The excess led to the government freezing the hiring quota of foreign workers for the manufacturing and services sectors.

Subsequently, a “recalibration” was carried out, with the unemployed foreign workers offered work in the plantation sector, Johari said.

“However, the plantation industry is afraid to hire (excess foreign workers) because if some of them are hired against their will, it will cause them to be deemed as forced labour,” he was quoted as saying.

Johari went on to say that the ministry is currently conducting a “pilot test” by hiring 60 local workers specialising in harvesting to change the perception of working in the plantations.

“We will train them to harvest oil palm trees and call them specialist harvesters and hopefully they can earn a salary of up to RM3,000.”

In comparing the country to Indonesia, Johari said Malaysia has a labour problem.

He said 100% of Indonesia’s workers were local and that they have harvesters with specialised skills, some of whom had earlier worked in Malaysia.

Johari said the country’s palm oil industry suffered losses of RM20 billion to RM30 billion following the labour shortage.