Migration in Malaysia

Statistics of Foreign Worker in Malaysia

Country	Domestic Helper (Maid)	Construction	Manufacturing	Service	Plantation	Agriculture	TOTAL
INDONESIA	203,225	192,789	198,643	38,684	202,156	82,435	917,932
BANGLADESH	18	61,303	170,332	27,002	30,599	18,112	307,366
NEPAL	84	3,785	135,764	26,901	1,621	7,655	175,810
MYANMAR	118	13,542	92,135	22,654	2,211	9,600	140,260
INDIA	236	5,002	13,866	47,021	16,675	30,997	113,797
VIETNAM	901	3,021	68,433	2,018	28	441	74,842
FILIPINA	9,657	1,031	1,915	2,944	1,489	1,604	18,640
PAKISTAN	11	5,922	2,217	1,593	1,244	12,002	22,989
THAILAND	346	811	893	4,588	57	407	7,102
CAMBODIA	9,166	92	2,353	218	137	125	12,091
CHINA	15	1,303	935	6,592	36	13	8,894
SRI LANKA	753	69	1,382	665	128	417	3,414
LAOS	2	7	16	3	1	28	57
UZBEKISTAN	0	0	0	4	0	0	4
KAZAKHSTAN	1	0	0	0	0	0	1
LAIN-LAIN	11	45	2	3	0	0	61
JUMLAH	224,544	288,722	688,886	180,890	256,382	163,836	1,803,260

From the table above, it shows that the statistics of international migration in Malaysia. Mostly of them are from Indonesia. The major sectors is maid and plantation. The second and third migration in Malaysia is from Bangladesh and Nepal. The sector of maid mostly are from Indonesia compared to the others country. From year to year, the migration among foreign workers are increasing. Especially from Indonesia, Bangladesh and Nepal. Due to increasing the number of immigrants to Malaysia, the job opportunities among the local are decreasing. So the local workers have to compete with the foreign workers to get the jobs. There are some factors that driving a migration and consequences from the migration in Malaysia and recommendation and solution for the issues.  

What are the factors that driving a migration into Malaysia?

There are various factors that driving illegal migration in Malaysia. It can be divided into three parts which are in economic, political and social factors.

1.   Economic factors

In Malaysia, the economics are boosting year by year. Thus this became the driving forces of the migration of peoples from outside especially from Indonesia, Thailand, Bangladesh, Philippines and so on to come over here, Malaysia. Because of boosting economy, there are many job opportunities that offered to the human labor. Despite of many job opportunities exist in the labor market, the salary that paid to the labor force also higher than in the origin country. As we know, some of our neighbor countries some of them facing economic crisis thus their country encourage its people to migrate and send remittances back home. The currency values of Malaysia Ringgit also more valuable than the other countries. Thus this also the economic factor that driven migration. However, the supply and demand of labor in market also plays an important role where in Malaysia actually there are less labor workers in certain areas such as construction sites where the demand is high but the supply is less. To solve the problem of this problem, Malaysia government imported labor workers from other countries.

2.   Political Issues

As we concerned, Malaysia country is not really having any serious political problem that ever occurred. It is rarely happen, if it is happen usually it is happened when the election is coming. Unstable political condition in some parts of the neighbor country such as Philippines and Thailand drive their people to migrate in Malaysia. Unstable political condition forces them to leave their country because it is not safe and many of them are not having work at that time. In addition, some of the foreigners that migrated in Malaysia are caused by disasters that happened in their origin country. For example, disasters like tsunami, volcano eruption, land slide, earthquake and many more.  Those political factors force them to move to another country as a refugee.

3.   Social factors

This factor is generally about the government policy that gives protection to the foreigners who migrate in Malaysia because of humanity. There is policy of government to encourage the agriculture sector and obviously we need more willingness labor and the foreigners are much more willing to work at that sector rather than the native. This also driven by the factor of culture which are most of our neighbor countries have the same cultures like religion and the way of life that is why foreigners from Indonesia and Thailand generally migrate  to Malaysia.

What are the consequences/effects of migration?

International migration leaves some bad consequences and positive consequences to the host country (Malaysia). The consequences are as follows.

1.   Unstable age and gender structure

Direct impact due to the inclusion of a massive population into a country makes the age and gender structure of the population unbalanced. This is because most of the migrants are males rather than females. Moreover, adult males are more than the other level of ages that migrated. Such effects were observed in the U.S. and Malaysia population pyramid. However, this condition is temporary.

2.   Migrants concentrated in only some certain areas

Migration causes concentration population in certain areas of the receiving country. Migrants that motivated in economy areas will be concentrated in the developed areas only especially in big cities and big towns only where there are many economics opportunity existed. In Malaysia, most of the migrants are concentrated in Selangor, Kuala Lumpur, Kota Kinabalu and occupied squatter settlements on the outskirts of town. Some of them may commit to crimes, congestion, infecting diseases and pollution.

3.   Multi-racial society

International migration has created a multi-racial population. In Malaysia, the arrival of people from different areas of the community in terms of culture and religion complicate the process of racial integration. The concentration in a specific area encourage the segregation according to race and religion but this condition is not really obvious by now because most of the population can communicate well and tolerate well too.

4.   Economy development

Migration of foreigners into the country makes the undeveloped areas developed. For example, migrants are concentrated in agriculture, construction and factory sectors. The admission of migrants in such areas solved the problem of work force shortage because of not many natives are willing to work in that area.  They are also contribute some energy to develop the economy of Malaysia.

5.   Remittance

Malaysia received workers from Indonesia, Philippines, Bangladesh and Myanmar to fulfill the need of labor force in chosen sectors. However, migrants entry causes huge of outflow money toward the country of migrants. In 2004, migrants send out their money to their origin in sum of RM 15 200 million and increased by 52 % from RM 10000 million in 2003. It is a great loss to our country. If this continuously happen, our currency might be fall down and inflation will occur.

6.   Refugees

Refugee is a person who is facing the fear caused by the oppressed in term of race, religion, nationality, membership of a social group or opinion polities and are unable to resolve the fear to get protection from their own country. The causes attraction of refugees in Malaysia because Malaysia is prosperity and peaceful country. Malaysia also unique because of various races and religion. By reasons of theirs status as a refugee named, they will face many problems when wishing to settle in the country. The statistics of refugees reached nearly 100,000 people, by early 2011 were from Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Palestine, and others.

Recommendation and solution

There are some recommendation and solution for some issues, such as refugees and illegal worker. Some employers hire the illegal or irregular migration as their worker, due to illegal worker receive or accept the low payment. So there are some recommendation or solution to overcome the problem of refugees and irregular migration.

Malaysia cooperate with neighbouring countries

Cooperate between both parties sure will reduce problem flood of refugees without permission to this country, further diplomatic relation between the two countries also will not be affected. In addition, Malaysia need to increase control and supervise along shore and border state. For example, marine police, immigration and navy should join energy and act in an integrated manner to do control and supervise along shore and border state.

Law enforcement

Authorities should punish and find firms that hire foreign worker without permission like punish jail or charge money and suspend business license. This problem can be reduce if the government takes action to the employers that take illegal workers into work their company. Malaysia do not fully rely on foreign workers to improve the development and economic sector. Malaysia also need give more job opportunity to theirs community and develop skill labour to work. In addition, the local workers do not too choosy when they want involved in jobs market.  Government also should estimate workforce requirement to every economic sector in the country like construction, industrial and plantation by quota recruitment of foreign workers. Quota recruitment workers should be followed with particular skill and according to need to every economic sector that there is in Malaysia.

Conclusion

As a conclusion foreign worker give a positive and negative impact to the Malaysia. If they are professional workers, they give a positive impact to our economy. Besides that we are certainly need foreign power in development of the nation. However their presence especially group without permission also created problem. Moreover government have to take action to overcome the issues of refugees and irregular migrant, due to they have arises a lot of problem in our country. Furthermore the job opportunities among the Malaysian will be also decrease. Then there will be a lot of unemployment among the local especially among fresh graduate. This problem will certainly create more serious if not handled immediately because Malaysians will compete with immigrant look for work.