Plantation minister moots ‘specialised harvesters’ term to draw Malaysians into being palm estate workers
KUALA LUMPUR, March 14 — Plantation and Commodities Minister Datuk Seri Johari Abdul Ghani today proposed calling plantation workers “specialised harvesters” instead, saying this could help convince local youths to join the country’s palm estates.
In his ministerial winding-up speech in Parliament today, Johari said Malaysia’s palm oil sector was currently short of around 40,000 harvesters due to the sector’s reliance on foreign labour.
“The lack of harvesters is something very serious where the national economy will suffer a loss of RM8 billion according to current prices,” Johari added.
He said foreign labour accounted for 75 per cent of the total compared to Indonesia where the industry was worked almost entirely by local manpower.
The issue then was made worse during the Covid-19 pandemic, he said, when many foreign workers returned to their countries and did not return.
Johari said that the ministry is trying to attract Malaysians, especially youths, to view the job of a harvester as unique, as it requires expertise.
"We cannot call them plantation workers. We call them specialised harvesters. So the ministry has started a course to moderate, or a course to become these specialised harvesters.
"We have identified 60 participants whom we will enrol under the Technical and Vocational Education and Training, and then dispatch them to plantations to teach them how to harvest. However, their work, we want to limit it to only three, that is to assess ripe fruits, cut the folds and harvest the fruits. The balance four [jobs], we want to ask foreign workers to do," Johari added.
