The Ministry of Labour, Immigration and Population has stopped employment agencies from recruiting new workers for Malaysia until they have sent all the previous workers they had hired to Kuala Lumpur.





But the ministry said that those who have been given permission by the committee of education, health and human resource between June 23 and July 21, will still be allowed to travel to Malaysia.

“(Employment) agencies told us there are about 8000 workers who already got visa. So, we want them to send these workers first. We have no limitation on quantity of workers they sent. But, we have now received about 3000 new applications,” Daw Khin Nway Oo, deputy director general from the ministry of labour, told The Myanmar Times on Thursday.

An official of Myanmar Overseas Employment Agencies Federations (MOEAF) expressed concern about the labour ministry’s order.

“It is impossible for agencies to send all workers permitted by them because some workers have decided not to go abroad while others decided to find work in other countries,” U Kyaw Htin Kyaw, MOEAF general secretary, told The Myanmar Times on August 2.

He also said the instructions of the ministry was not grounded on the existing conditions and was not in accord with the process of agencies sending workers to Malaysia.

U Kyaw Htin Kyaw said the MOEAF will reply and give suggestions to the ministry on how to solve the issue after it collected data from the agencies.

“Ministry officials told us they will consider only the applications of new workers when the earlier ones who got calling visa have all been sent there,” an oversea employment agency director who asked not to be named said.





“But they couldn’t give the due date on when they are going to process the hiring of new workers. I had already sent all my workers. So, I have to wait before I can send workers again.”

He also said that at the moment many workers want to go to Malaysia and agencies and employers from Malaysia also want the Myanmar labour than citizens from other countries because Myanmar workers are hard working and they can be trained easily.

Myanmar has lifted its ban of sending workers to Malaysia in June in 2017, after a six-month suspension over political and diplomatic issues facing the two countries.