Sarawak,Malaysia:Wednesday.
Many Malaysians preferred to work abroad because of the high salaries they can earn. As of November this year,2007, a total of 400,000 Malaysians worked abroad.
The majority of them worked in Singapore. Others are in the Gulf States, Saudi Arabia, Australia and some were more adventurous. This last group worked in places like Brazil, Africa and even Europe.
This fact was disclosed by the Deputy Minister for Human Resources, Datuk abdulRahman Bakar, in the Parliament yesterday.
Most of these workers were in the semi-skilled sector and about twenty percent of them were professionals. Accoding to the Deputy Minister, the main reasons for these people working abroad is the very high salary offered by their employers.
The most popular sectors were medical, construction, business, communication technology and nursing. A Malaysian nurse working back home in Malaysia can only earn up to RM2,000.00 while her or his counterpart working in Saudi Arabia can earn as much as RM12,000.00.
The Depuy Minister reiterated that the government will not stop Malaysians working abroad because it practised an open policy.
However, since 2001 the Malaysian government has put in place various incentives and benefits to lure these professionals back.
However, to the chagrin of the Minister in -charge, these benefits and inecntives have yet to be taken by the intended parties. Among the complaints are that Malaysians who married foreigners also wanted job and ,above all, citizenship for their spouses.
The policy is clear, noted the Minister Datuk SUbramaniam. It was the implementation of such policies that braked the whole process. It was red-tape, said our readers.