31/03/2011 (The Star) - Sarawak timber and plantation companies which require 12,600 to 13,000 new workers for their plywood mills and estates this year are turning to more localities in Indonesia to tackle their labour woes.

They are now directly going to source Indonesian workers from Jogjakarta, central Java besides recruiting from neighbouring Pontianak, other parts of west Kalimantan and Sulawesi.

Major firms like Sibu-based Rimbunan Hijau Group and Miri-based Shin Yang Group, Sime Darby and Sarawak Land Consolidation and Rehabilitation Authority (Salcra) were represented in a 24-member Sarawak delegation which met some 30 Indonesian employment agencies in Jogjakarta during a three-day business matching session last week.

Indonesian consul/counsellor Rafail Walangitan said the meeting was the third the consulate had arranged, after Pontianak and Bali, to get Sarawak companies to deal direct with Indonesian employment agencies.

“The consulate is committed and doing its best to help Sarawak companies overcome the labour shortage problem. Sarawak companies are getting good response from Indonesian employment agencies,” he told StarBiz yesterday.

The acute shortage of workers has been highlighted by Sarawak Oil Palm Plantation Owners' Association which said the plantation sector alone was now short of 20%-30% of its total labour requirement. It predicts the situation would worsen as more land is opened up for cultivation.

The association has claimed that due to labour shortage, 10% to 15% of fresh fruit bunches in plantations were not harvested and left to rot, causing losses of up to RM1bil a year.

Rafail said Sarawak companies were paying about RM800 per worker to Indonesian employment agencies. The fee includes recruiting and transporting the worker to the Sarawak border. Sarawak companies have to pay a levy to the Malaysian Government to bring in foreign workers.

The consulate issues job orders to companies wishing to recruit Indonesian labour.

He advised Sarawak companies to stop using agents or third parties to recruit Indonesian workers as they had to pay higher recruitment fees because of the commissions paid to the middlemen.

“These agents ask for advanced payment in recruitment fees and there is no guarantee that the employers will get the workers that they require.

“Indonesian employment agencies follow the recruitment procedures and help to process the applications faster. The whole recruitment process takes about a month.”

Rafail has said recently that many Indonesians had landed in Sarawak as illegal workers because they were duped by bogus recruitment agents, who were active on recruitment drives in villages in west Kalimantan, Java and Sulawesi, promising Indonesians with good-paying jobs in the state without the relevant documents.

There are now more than 200,000 registered Indonesian workers in Sarawak, most of whom were employed by oil palm plantations and plywood mills. The consulate believes there are 100,000 illegal Indonesian workers in Sarawak.

Rafail said a recent study by the Sarawak Timber Association (STA) revealed that plywood companies in Peninsular Malaysia were the best paymasters, offering more than RM14 per day in basic salary to Indonesians as compared to RM12 in Sarawak and RM11 in Sabah.

Sarawak plywood mills revised the daily wages of Indonesian workers by RM2 to RM12 in July last year.

“The study shows that Sarawak is the second-best destination for Indonesian workers in Malaysia,” said Rafail.