Worker crackdown hits construction

Worker crackdown hits construction

MALAYSIA: Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad acknowledged on Tuesday that a mass expulsion of illegal immigrants had hurt Malaysia's construction industry but indicated that employers must now be prepared to pay the relatively higher costs of legal workers.

Asked whether employers were holding the government to ransom by forcing it to reverse a decision on immigrants, Mahathir told reporters there was no reversal but "if they want to have (foreign labor) they must only employ legal ones, so they'll have to pay."

The government would not penalize employers who had in the past used illegal labor because "we'll penalize ourselves ... the construction industry is not moving," he was quoted as saying by the official Bernama news agency.

Illegal Indonesian immigrants made up 70 percent of the building industry's 500,000 foreign workers before a crackdown in recent months, according to the Master Builders Association of Malaysia (MBAM). --AFP