Foreign labour employment in construction project

Abstract

Demands on labour force nowadays increased rapidly each year as the globalisation become a national core business, especially in construction sector. Construction sector provides all kind of national needs and Malaysia become a well developed country in the world. But there is an issue where the citizens have their own demand on choosing work which they refused to work as a construction labour. However, work in the construction sector is often stigmatized with 4D (dirty, dangerous, difficult, demeaning). Therefore, Malaysian construction sector had been pulling factor for foreign labour migration in this country. Nowadays, the foreign labour hold the major composition of labour on construction project. This study aim was to investigated the advantages and disadvantages of foreign labour in construction project. Parallel to this aim, this study set three (3) objectives; to identify common criteria of labour recruitment and selection among employer, to identify the advantages of hiring foreign labours among employer, and to identify the negative impact of foreign labour to our country, Malaysia. The method that been used to get the data for the objectives was questionnaires distribution method. The questionnaire consisted four (4) sections; details of the construction project, category of respondent, details of construction labours and likert scale questions. Then, the data been analysed using percentage and mean index method to reflected it with the objectives. From the analysis, the most strongly agreed criteria that made foreign labours as the majority in construction project was working experience in construction sector. Most of the employers strongly agreed that foreign labour were cost them lower compared to local labour. However, the employers also strongly agreed that the foreign labour brought negative impacts such as contamination to local culture, increased social problems and increased job competitions to local people.