KUALA LUMPUR: A total of 24,560 foreign workers are expected to complete their interviews by April 27, says Datuk Seri M. Saravanan.

       This is part of the first batch that is set to come back to Malaysia.

       The Human Resources Minister said another 154,560 are expected to come through after completing the verification process over the next six weeks, adding that the ministry has prepared 260 interview sessions to ensure that there is no backlog.

       "We have received a total of 519,937 applications as of April 7 across all sectors. There are 290,937 applications that were not sent. As such, we are contacting them manually and sorting it out," said Saravanan.

       He added that about 40,000 were rejected immediately for several reasons, such as incomplete forms and not following guidelines.

       Saravanan said that while there were ministry officers to approve applications in the past and oversee such matters, this is no longer the case as the process is done online.

       He then said at a press conference on Tuesday (April 12) that several sectors such as textiles, barbershops, scrap metal and goldsmith's shops have been frozen from obtaining foreign workers.

       Saravanan added that this decision was made by the Home Ministry, but said that the matter will be brought up for discussion if there was a dire need to fill these frozen sectors.

       He said that the shortages in sectors such as construction, plantations, manufacturing, agriculture and services would still be fulfilled, he added.

       Prior to the pandemic, there were 1.7 million foreign workers in the country and there are currently 1.17mil in the country.

       Saravanan added that despite efforts by his ministry, locals were not keen to take up jobs in the industry, which caused worker shortages.

       "The industries were upset when we did not allow foreign workers to come in and it was unfair to them as they continued to suffer losses. The plantation industry alone suffered losses of RM20bil but now we are moving forward and pushing for automation," he said.

       "There are no takers for the dirty, dangerous and difficult jobs among locals," added Saravanan.