Working group meeting ends without major decisions

A meeting of the Joint Working Group on Labor Market with Malaysia ended without a decision on reducing labor costs and increasing the number of recruiting agencies, but the meeting did decide on hiring security personnel and domestic workers from Bangladesh.

On Monday (March 20), a joint working group (JWG) meeting was held on labor market issues between Bangladesh and Malaysia. The meeting was held on behalf of Bangladesh and was led by the senior secretary of the Ministry of Expatriate Welfare and Foreign Employment Ahmed Muniruch Salehin.

At the end of the meeting Dr. Pravas Barta. Ahmed Muniruch Salehin said, "According to the memorandum of understanding, their employers are supposed to pay the cost of hiring workers, but they are not paying this cost. Although this was discussed, no decision was made. "

Senior Secretary of the Ministry of Expatriate Welfare and Foreign Employment, "It has been decided to add the online system (I am an expatriate) of Bangladesh. They had already agreed that it will be added online by April 15," they said. Costs could have been brought under control if recruitment of staff from databanks had been possible, as that has not yet been possible, so there is much discussion today about fixing the system and implementing it. "

Dr. in response to a question. Ahmed Muniruch Salehin said, "There was no agenda in the meeting regarding increasing the number of recruiting agencies and there was no proposal from Bangladesh. They asked for an updated list of recruiting agencies. Although we have given a list earlier we do not know why fresh list is sought. "

It should be noted that from September 1, 2018, the movement of workers from Bangladesh to Malaysia was closed. After long negotiations and various uncertainties, Malaysia and Bangladesh signed a memorandum of understanding on December 19, 2021 for the recruitment of workers. Then on June 2, 2022, the outstanding issues including technical issues were resolved in the meeting of the two countries in Dhaka under the leadership of Malaysian Human Resources Minister M Saravanan. The two ministers officially announced the opening of the labor market. According to the new MoU, the workers will start going to Malaysia from 8 August 2022.

In the beginning, the Malaysian government announced to recruit workers from Bangladesh through 25 recruiting agencies. Then the Malaysian government added 75 more recruiting agencies in two phases. Now the Malaysian government is recruiting workers through a total of 100 recruiting agencies in Bangladesh.