Ram Chandra Giri

In a development that could affect Nepal’s human resources export, the Malaysian government has decided to recruit workers from Bangladesh under state arrangements.

According to media reports, a ministerlevel meeting between Malaysia and Bangladesh decided to workers through a government mechanism, not by private recruiting companies following a ministerlevel meeting of the two countries held one week ago.

Malaysian Human Resources Minister Dauk Dr S Subramaniam told the Daily Star, a Bangladeshi daily newspaper, that his country will take workers through government- to-government arrangements.

“One policy decision that we made is this new process of recruitment will be based on a government-to-government basis,” the daily reported Subramaniam as saying. The new agreement between Malaysia and Bangladesh is likely to impact the Nepal foreign employment industry.

The officials at the Nepali mission in Malaysia and outsourcing agencies have raised concerns over the possible decline in the demand of Nepali workers from the Southeast Asian nation.

Kumud Khanal, second secretary of Nepal Association of Foreign Employment Agencies, said the Nepali recruiting agencies would have to fight hard to land demands for workers. According to him, both rise in the minimum wage and the new agreement will have a severe impact on hiring of Nepali workers.

“Both Nepal and Bangladesh pretty much the suppliers of mostly unskilled workers. The two countries also have common areas of priority in the Malaysian job market. So it will affect overall demand,” said Khanal urging the government to send a high-level delegation to Malaysia for talks.

The latest development came as a dampner to Nepali recruiting agencies, which reported surge in demand from Malaysia in last few months. The agencies were expecting to send around 175,000 workers to Malaysia this fiscal year. However, the Department of Foreign Employment (DoFE) has assured that the agreement between Malaysia and Bangladesh would not affect hiring from Nepal.

“My personal opinion is Nepali workers have a v very good image in Malaysia,” said Director General of DoFE Purna Chandra Bhattarai, underscoring Malaysia’s demand of around 70,000 workers in the last three months.

Published on: 21 September 2012 | The Kathmandu Post