In September, Malaysia's Immigration Department issued a new policy requiring employers to pick up foreign workers at the airport no more than 6 hours after they land. The lack of clarity and very short time limit left the management of Malaysian companies feeling confused. In response, in early October, the department gave a leeway of 4 extra hours and allowed agents to represent the employers at the airport.
Workers will be deported if not picked up within the time limit
In late September, the Director General of the Immigration Department of Malaysia, Khairul Dzaimee Daud, made an unexpected announcement concerning the pick-up of foreign workers from Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA). Since 2014, freshly landed employees have had to be picked up within 24 hours. Before 2014, this time limit was 72 hours. The latest change in regulation abruptly reduced this time by 75% – only 6 hours!
The September announcement seemed to communicate that if a company representative arrived, say, 7 or 8 hours after workers landed at KLIA, these workers, whom they have invested a lot of money and energy in recruiting, would already be on a deportation flight back home. Khairul Dzaimee Daud said that, after 6 hours, the workers would be immediately given a ‘Not To Land' (NTL) notice and put on the earliest return flight. This is supposedly to ensure that the workers have legitimate employers and are not coming to work illegally in Malaysia.
Malaysian employers are confused and angry at this top-down decision
Malaysian employers, represented by the Malaysian Employers Federation (MEF), are confused and angry at this abrupt new regulation. In an interview in the newspaper Geteran, the MEF's president Datuk Syed Hussain Syed Husman, criticized the Immigration Department for not consulting with stakeholders before taking this decision. Their top-down approach to implementing regulations causes confusing problems for both businesses and airport personnel.
Imagine that a simple logistical problem like a traffic jam to enter Kuala Lumpur, or a driver being late by 1-2 hours, could get your workers deported! For instance, it takes about 3 hours to drive from the northwestern city of Ipoh to the capital. That is already half of the time limit allotted by the Immigration Department.
On top of that, the slow customs and immigration process for foreign workers at KLIA often makes them exit the airport a good 3-4 hours after landing! This is what the president of the Muslim Restaurant Entrepreneurs Association of Malaysia, Datuk Jahawar Ali Taib Khan, highlights as the core hypocrisy of this new regulation. He says that the government is requiring employers to be über-punctual while not doing anything to improve the efficiency of their own immigration services at the airport, for instance, by opening more immigration counters. It feels like dumping the responsibility for efficiency onto businesses.
On the financial level, the MEF's president has said that airport pick-ups within 6 hours will automatically increase the cost of hiring any foreign worker. In his opinion, this is a counter-productive move at a time when many Malaysian companies are understaffed and need foreign labor to kickstart the economy after the pandemic.
Initial lack of clarity about whether agents can pick up workers
The second point of confusion was the lack of clarity about who exactly can represent the company at KLIA. Does the company need to send HR managers, the workers' direct future supervisor or manager, or just anyone? Does it mean that if the company is understaffed or higher management is not free, even interns or cleaning personnel could pick up the workers? How about contracting private agencies to do the job?
On October 6, the Immigration Department finally provided some answers to these questions. Director General Khairul Dzaimee Daud gave the green light to contracting agencies. As agencies can pick up the employees of various companies, this will also prevent the overcrowding of individual company representatives at KLIA. In the newspaper, The Star, a staff member of a maid agency said this overcrowding would be a “nightmare.” The agents will need to have a written legal authorization, i.e., a power of attorney, to represent companies.
The Director General, who had previously only vaguely said that extensions could be granted under exceptional circumstances, now clarified that employers will have a leeway of 4 additional hours if they (or their agents) are unable to be at KLIA within 6 hours. So the new time limit is now a maximum of 10 hours. The employers or agencies will have to remain contactable by phone during that time.
The Association of Employment Agencies has an additional recommendation for Immigration Services to improve this whole confusing situation. In The Star, the association's vice-president, Suresh Tan, advises the authorities to allow agencies to handle foreign workers of both the formal and informal sectors. Currently, informal workers like domestic helpers can only be picked up by their direct employees.
Airport pick-ups apply only to blue-collar foreign workers
In general, foreign workers who require airport pick-ups are being hired for blue-collar positions in construction, manufacturing, agriculture and domestic help. Expats in white-collar jobs have other types of work visas and employer-employee relationships.
In Malaysia, “expatriate” has a limited legal definition. “Expats” in the country are highly-skilled workers who hold degrees (alternatively, advanced diplomas or technical certificates) and earn at least 10,000 ringgits (about 1,300 USD) per month, clarifies the accounting firm 3E Accounting. Blue-collar workers do not meet that criteria and are simply called “foreign workers.”
The immigration procedure for white-collar expats in 2022 is this: get an approval letter from the Malaysian authorities while still abroad, make some online payments, take the plane, pick up an Immigration Pass Sticker at the Expatriate Service Division (ESC) of KLIA by themselves upon arrival. There are three categories of Immigration Pass Stickers, which clarifies the recruitment platform A Job Thing. Category 1 (EP1) is for top management (e.g., CEO, CFO), Category 2 (EP2) is for middle management (e.g., managers), and Category 3 (EP3) is for lower management (i.e., rank-and-file white-collar employees).
In contrast, blue-collar workers, such as maids, bricklayers on construction sites and farmers, have less independence. The Malaysian company that has hired them has more control over their immigration procedure and other things like accommodation.
