Financial Times

Secure employment for Sri Lankans in Malaysia
Sri Lanka’s foreign recruitment industry has signed a MoU with a Malaysian company paving the way for more secure employment for hundreds of Sri Lankan workers, much more advanced than the practices that prevail in the Middle East employment market.

Cosmos, a management company which handles similar assignments for Indonesian workers seeking employment in Malaysia, will provide a pre-recruitment assessment or rating of companies that offer jobs, Suraj Dandeniya, President of the Association of Licensed Foreign Employment Agencies (ALFEA), told The Sunday Times FT.

This protective mechanism was clinched during a visit to Malaysia last month by a delegation of recruitment agencies led by Dandeniya with the Labour Ministry being represented by Deputy Minister Mervyn Silva.

The delegation met associations of employment agencies and Malaysian officials during their stay primarily aimed at speeding up the process of 80,000 jobs for Sri Lankan workers that Malaysia has offered in a deal by Labour and Foreign Employment Minister Athauda Seneviratne during a recent visit there.
During the visit, members of the delegation were able to secure jobs for at least 10,000 workers there in the next two months in areas like plantations, manufacturing services and construction.

“The pact is a kind of surety in case something goes wrong and there is a problem of wages or other disputes,” he said, adding that this practice makes it more secure so that one could get employment in the Middle East.

While ALFEA will be responsible for pre-departure assessment procedures of the needs of the prospective job seeker at the other end, Cosmos will handle the post-departure process. Dandeniya said each applicant needs at least Rs 100,000 for pre-departure including Malaysian levies and other costs and would be provided a loan for this purpose.

The loan would be deducted from an individual’s salary under supervision of Cosmos. Workers to Malaysia can earn between Rs 25,000 to Rs 40,000 per month for construction and other categories.

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