KUALA LUMPUR: FGV Holdings Bhd will proceed with the recruitment of 1,210 workers from Indonesia despite Jakarta’s current ban on sending their people to work in Malaysia.
The Edge Market reported today that the recruitment of this batch of workers had been arranged before the freeze.
It remains unclear if the workers will be able to come to Malaysia.
FGV said the new batch of workers would help to reduce its current shortfall of 10,000 workers, or 30% of its required workforce.
The company was responding to queries on how the temporary migrant worker freeze imposed by Indonesia will affect its foreign worker hiring process and operations.
The temporary freeze, announced by Indonesia on July 13, is expected to cause serious labour shortage issues, especially in the plantation industry.
Yesterday, FMT reported that Malaysia’s oil palm sector had lost an estimated RM10.46 billion worth of unpicked fruits in the first five months of this year because of the ongoing labour shortage.
The industry is estimated to be short of 28,940 labourers, with an approximate productivity of harvesting two tonnes of oil palm fruit a day.
This comes up to about 57,880 tonnes of fresh oil palm fruits being unharvested a day, or 1.5 million tonnes a month.
Based on this calculation, it is estimated that there are around 7.52 million tonnes of unpicked oil palm fruits due to a lack of labourers.
To resolve this, plantation industries and commodities minister Zuraida Kamaruddin said the government had been encouraging plantations to increase the use of machines to reduce dependence on labour.
This would also boost productivity and increase workers’ income, she said.
The industry is heavily dependent on foreign labour, with 75% of manpower on farms comprising migrant workers.