Malaysia labour market remain closed for dishonest circles

Reza Mahmud :

Government failed to make easy for the migration aspirant workers for the larger Malaysian labour market which creating woes for the whole manpower markets, sources said.

Stake holders said, lack of structural reforms over the past decade has allowed organised syndicates to take control of the Bangladesh-Malaysia labour migration corridor, resulting in a sharp and abnormal increase in migration costs.

Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies (BAIRA) leaders said, the dishonest recruiters along with several officials of both the countries created a unholy circle making the market closed for long.

When contacted, Md Fakhrul Islam, former Joint Secretary General of BAIRA told The New Nation, ” A section of recruiting agencies formed syndicate several times and include officials in the circle to make abnormal earning make the market procedure hell for aspirant workers.”

He said, the government failed several times to create syndicate free Malaysian labor market.

Besides, similar observations shared at a national dialogue titled “Bangladesh-Malaysia Labour Migration Corridor: Why the Syndicate Prevails, and Exploitation in Recruitment Persists!”, organised by the Ovibashi Karmi Unnayan Program (OKUP) at the Bangladesh-China Friendship Conference Center (BCFCC) in Dhaka on Monday.

Zia Hassan, policy adviser to the Ministry of Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment, said the migration system to Malaysia lacks any effective regulatory mechanism.

“For the past ten years, we have been holding the same discussions, seminars and policy dialogues, yet no meaningful structural reform has been implemented.

As a result, migration costs have soared, and criminal syndicates have taken over the entire system,” he said.

Terming the corridor deeply compromised, Hassan said, “This has effectively become an organised crime structure. We must recognise the real challenges and strengthen institutional capacity.

Establishing a centralised migrant recruitment database could be a crucial step toward restoring accountability.”

He also pointed to a serious gap between policy formulation and ground realities. “What is written in policy documents does not reflect what actually happens.

This contradiction has criminalised the entire migration process,” he said, adding that current policies fail to align with social and market realities.

Hassan argued that the idea of ‘zero-cost migration’ is impractical and called for policy redesign based on labour market supply-and-demand dynamics.

Although the government has fixed the migration cost at Tk78,000, migrant workers are reportedly paying between Tk400,000 and Tk600,000 in practice.

Speakers noted that this vast disparity has forced ethical and compliant recruiting agencies out of the market, enabling criminal and high-risk actors to dominate.

They also pointed out that Malaysian authorities have authorised only a limited number of Bangladeshi agencies to send workers-a system widely criticised as a syndicate-based arrangement.

Recruiting agency representatives said even compliant agencies are being sidelined due to syndicate control.

One participant stated, “We purchased demand letters at a fixed price, but later syndicate-linked agencies offered much higher amounts for the same letters.

Under such conditions, ensuring transparency and fairness becomes almost impossible.”

From the Malaysian perspective, representatives of the North South Initiative highlighted governance failures. Adrian Pereira said, “Malaysia lacks whistle-blower protection, and corruption is widespread.

Huge sums of money are involved, and without strong political commitment, meaningful reform is unlikely.”

Speakers described Malaysia’s labour market as being driven by syndicates, with a large share of migration costs divided among intermediaries operating in both Bangladesh and Malaysia. As a result, officially fixed fees have become largely irrelevant.

The dialogue recommended three major policy shifts: moving from overall migration cost ceilings to regulating marketing and intermediary expenses; transitioning from volume-driven migration to skilled migration; and shifting focus from total remittance figures to income earned per migrant worker.

Setting the context, OKUP chairperson and social researcher Shakirul Islam traced the historical development of the Bangladesh-Malaysia migration corridor.

He highlighted the heavy socio-economic burden borne by migrant workers and their families due to opaque recruitment systems and long-standing policy failures.

The event was organised under the Strengthened and Informative Migration Systems (SIMS) project, funded by the Embassy of Switzerland in Bangladesh and implemented with support from Helvetas Swiss Intercooperation Bangladesh.