PUTRAJAYA, 4 Sept 2008: The Home Ministry will ensure that employers give preference to locals to fill up vacant posts before approving their applications for foreign workers.
Its minister Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar said the ministry would provide information on qualified locals from the Human Resources Ministry database to the companies for consideration.
"If they say that the local workers are not qualified for the jobs, we will check on the veracity of their claims before approving their applications for foreign workers," he told reporters today.
He said the ministry would also ensure that the ratio between local and foreign workers was observed by employers.
Syed Hamid said the ministry would come down hard on foreign workers who overstayed their employment – 10 years for skilled workers and five years for
unskilled workers.
On a newspaper report on the difficulty of getting working permits for foreign monks, he said it should never happen as the Immigration Department had been told in writing to approve them.
"We will monitor the situation, and if the problems persists, refer to us and we will solve them," he said.
Syed Hamid said the approval was given to enable locals to be trained to replace foreign monks. – Bernama
