Home Affairs Minister Datuk Seri Radzi Sheikh Ahmad said the employers must show proof that they had advertised with the labour exchange set up by Human Resource Ministry…

“If proven that there has been no response from locals within that period, then the employers can apply to employ foreign workers and their applications will be considered by a committee.” [Bernama]

I have written in an earlier post regarding this matter, that Malaysian companies have not taken enough initiative for the past decade to hire locals to fill their vacancies, but went straight for foreign labour instead because they are cheap, and easy to find.

I am not sure what is the Electronic Labour Exchange, how it works or how effective it is… the move is however welcome nonetheless; at least it shows that the government is giving some thoughts to control the influx of foreign workers and opening more job opportunities for locals instead.