Malaysia speeds up hiring foreign workers amid labor shortage in key industries

Malaysia will waive industry quotas to speed up the hiring of foreign workers, Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail said, as the nation seeks to ease labor shortages across key industries.

Employers no longer have to comply with quota limits and “other conditions” before hiring foreign workers from 15 source countries, the official told reporters on Tuesday. The temporary exemption is limited to a year and applicable only to new applications, he said.

The Southeast Asian nation is accelerating hiring, with the home ministry taking over recruitment from the ministry of human resources. In 2022, Malaysia approved only 676,070 applications out of the 1.6 million it received.