FRUSTRATED that he could not save anything, Amirul left his job as a business development executive at an oil-and-gas company in Kuala Lumpur last year to search for work illegally in the United Kingdom.

Almost a year on, the 27-year-old said he has no regrets taking on a job as a factory operator where he stays at a rent-free workers’ hostel and gets paid £60 (RM330) a day and still gets to send home at least RM1,000 a month to his mother.