KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysia will waive industry quotas to speed up the hiring of foreign workers, Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail said on Tuesday, as the nation seeks to ease labour shortages across key industries.

Employers no longer have to comply with quota limits before hiring workers from 15 source countries, the official told reporters.

The temporary exemption is limited to a year and applicable only to new hires, he said.

The South-east Asian nation is accelerating hiring as the economy recovers from the pandemic, with the Home Ministry taking over recruitment from the Ministry of Human Resources.

In 2022, Malaysia approved only 676,070 applications out of the 1.6 million it received.

Some of the other highlights of the new policy include provisions that mandate that jobs offered to foreigners won’t affect Malaysian workers, and for conditional approvals to be given within three days.

Malaysia will also send delegates to the source countries of migrant labour to help facilitate the hiring process, while a “recalibration” period for illegal foreign workers already in the country will be extended to Dec 31. BLOOMBERG