The Impact of Employment of Foreign Workers: Local Employability and Trade Union Roles in Malaysia

The issue of foreign workers has received increase media and national attention. However, to date there has been limited research on the nature and consequences of employment of foreign workers in Malaysia. Introduction of significant changes in recruitment phenomenon has ended in painful and traumatic atmosphere which barely acceptable by local workforce in Malaysia. This conceptual paper can be derived from the field of industrial relations which play a significant role in employment of foreign workers. The article reports on the preliminary findings on employment status of local workforce and trade union rights affected by employment of foreign workers. In addition, the research makes a number of recommendations, including the need for further development on reducing the employment of foreign workers and more refined targeting of vulnerable foreign workers linked with labour legislations.