Invasion of the foreign kind

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This scene must be very familiar to many Malaysians by now.

Each time, whenever there is a long holiday during the festive seasons, we see many of the foreign workers taking this opportunity to relax and explore the country. In KL, we will see many of them converge in ‘strategic’ locations like KLCC and major shopping malls. There are also many who will converge in popular areas like Jalan TAR and Jalan Silang.The area in Jalan Silang ( behind Kotaraya) is so popular among the Nepalese and Bangladashis that they have set up restaurants and shops. As a Malaysian, if you happen to be in this area, you may be wondering whether you are in Nepal or Bangladesh. Their presence is so overwhelming that it simply makes you feel like a minority there.

In fact, Malaysia is a melting pot of many other nationalities. The largest group is undoubtedly the Indonesians which is not surprising due to the many similarities in culture, language and religion. While the males are mainly construction workers the females either work as maids or in restaurants. The second largest group is the Bangladeshis who seemed adapt to work in many fronts: construction, restaurant, factory and even in Petaling Street. The third largest group is the Burmese. Most of them work in restaurants with many managing stalls in coffee shops. Then there are the Nepalese who work mainly as security guards which suits the reputation of the Gurkhas. We also see of the many Vietnamese who are employed to work in factories throughout the country. There are also the pocketfuls of Indians who work in the IT industries while the Chinese and Thais work in restaurants as cooks.

I believe that the government will not be able to provide a correct statistic of these foreigners who are here either legally or illegally. A rough estimate of about 3 million is almost equal to the Malaysian Indians population, if not more.

As a workforce, although these foreign workers play an important role in supporting our economy, there are some downside as well. There have been many social problems that are attributed to these foreigners: security and health. Robberies have been rampantly committed by a certain group of foreigners while in the health front, when tuberculosis was already extinct here, it has resurfaced again. No thanks to the lax in the health screening checks by the relevant authorities.

What will the impact of these foreign workers be to our economy?

Well, apparently the local bus companies have already felt the impact of these foreigners for survival. A random check in bus stands here and KL showed a ratio almost at one Malaysian to seven foreigners. We have seen them manning stalls and doing retail businesses. Once they have tasted some successes in making money, they are bound to stay on and even take over these small businesses. By then, it will too late for the government to do much to repatriate them. And for the years to come, we will witness a baby boomer of the foreign kind.

Is our dependence on these foreign workers at the expense of the locals or are we just over dependence on them?