Crisis-hit Asian nations move to expel foreign workers

Crisis-hit Asian nations move to expel foreign workers

Once in great demand, foreign workers are being shipped back
home as Asian countries feel the impact of the financial crisis
engulfing the region. Mohan Srilal reports for Inter Press
Service.

SINGAPORE: For years, armies of foreign laborers who take on
jobs from building skyscrapers to cleaning house, have flocked to
Southeast Asia's newly rich countries in search of better paying
work.

But as the region's currency and economic jitters take their
toll, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand are moving to discourage
or even reverse this flow of people from other parts of Asia.

Hardest hit by an economic slowdown since July, Thailand is
preparing a plan within three months to fire overseas laborers,
mostly from Indochina, and replace them with Thais in a bid to
ease unemployment pressure at home.

Singaporeans and Malaysians are wondering how long they can
hang on to the luxury of keeping foreign domestic help, as their
governments tighten rules for their employment.

Singapore, a city state of 3.5 million people, has 100,000
overseas born maids that are part of a total of 450,000 foreign
workers. One in seven households here has a maid, most likely
from Indonesia, the Philippines, Myanmar or Sri Lanka.

Neighboring Malaysia has 140,000 foreign maids from these
countries and some 2 million foreign workers, of whom 800,000 are
illegal. Malaysians have been asked to drastically cut their
unskilled labor force, which officials call a drain on financial
resources and a contributor to the current account deficit
through the earnings they send home.

In a recent editorial, the Malaysian daily New Straits Times
said: "Malaysians will no doubt support such a policy, for
clearly we are now in the throes of being swamped by foreign
workers, bringing with them social, economic, political and
security problems for the country."

Once welcomed for their willingness to work, often at pay
rates lower than usual, foreign workers in Southeast Asia are
being told it's about to go home.

The trend underlines the risks that go with being a temporary
worker in a foreign land, one whose work is useful but who is
among the first to go when prosperous economic times are
threatened.

In the months since Asia's currency crisis began in July,
foreign workers have increasingly been transformed from people
who help plug growing labor shortages to those who snatch jobs
away from suffering locals.

Likewise, governments have long turned a blind eye to illegal
workers in countries like Thailand and Malaysia until now.

Reports say 6,000 Indonesians were detained in late November
in a crackdown on illegal workers in Malaysia. Likewise, labor
activists say foreign construction workers, who make up 70
percent of registered migrant laborers, have begun to be
retrenched in once bustling work sites in Malaysia.

When the currency crunch first hit Malaysia, the government
froze the hiring of all foreign maids but revoked it under
pressure from maid recruiting agencies. Since then, the Malaysian
government has moved to tighten laws on hiring foreign maids.

Human resources minister Lim Ah Lek is drafting an amendment
to the Employment Act of 1995 that would require employers to
retrench foreign workers first. "This amendment is also part of
our measures to stop dependency on foreign workers and to reduce
the outflow of our money," he said.

Activists say that even laborers with valid work permits risk
being laid off. Aegile Fernandez of the non government agency
Tenaganita says that after being laid off, many workers are
unable to go home because their documents are held by employers.

International trade minister Rafidah Aziz has also warned
companies not to employ illegal foreign workers, saying those who
do were "doing a disservice to the country".

To discourage the hiring of foreign maids, the Singapore
government in November announced an increase in the monthly levy
due from those with foreign domestic help. The levy was hiked by
nearly US$10 to US$220, will henceforth will be increased yearly,
the labor ministry said.

Singapore's move to go slow on hiring foreign domestic workers
is unlikely to come easy, though.

As debate rages on whether working parents should use child
care centers instead of hiring maids, many working mothers have
written to newspapers and rung up talkback radio shows to
complain about the standards and steep cost of child care.

If Singapore wants its highly qualified women to continue to
work, then it must provide better child care, they argue. "There
are great differences between employing a maid and placing
children in child care," reader Siew Ngung Chia wrote to the
Straits Times newspaper. "The cost of sending two children to a
child care center can be a major financial burden."

Child care services cost from $222 to $382 a month, while one
can employ a foreign maid for a monthly salary as little as $115,
plus the government levy.

"Working parents will find that employing a maid is value for
money because she can also help them in housework," Siew points
out. The maid's presence allows the mother to spend time with her
children after work, instead of doing housework, she added.

For now, Singaporeans are not convinced that employing a
foreign worker is a drain on the economy. And since the Singapore
dollar has not been battered like the other currencies, they
still believe that a wealthy nation can afford to pay others to
do work viewed as drudgery.

The government has also increased the levy for unskilled
foreign workers to $300 per month, even as it lowered the levy
for highly skilled foreigners to work here.

The crackdown on foreign labor in Malaysia and Singapore is
bound to weigh heavily on Indonesia, where financial instability
forced the government to seek a bailout package led by the
International Monetary Fund of more than $30 billion.

Loss of jobs overseas could hurt a key source of dollars for
Indonesia the $2.5 billion that its workers, mostly in Malaysia,
Singapore and Saudi Arabia, remit annually.

Likewise, the job picture at home is not the best. Indonesian
illegal workers in the Middle East were sent home recently,
adding to the number of people searching for work. Some 50 firms
have also sought government approval to fire more than 10,000
workers.

-- IPS