Trends and Reliance on Foreign Labourers in Malaysia: Conventional Construction versus Industrialized Building System Construction

School of Housing, Building and Planning, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800, Penang, Malaysia

^a Corresponding author : azree@usm.my

Abstract

There has been an influx of foreign labourers in Malaysia over the past decade due to sustained economic growth and a limited labour market. As a long term measure to ensure sustainable growth as well as to minimize socio-economic implications, a medium to longer-term policy on foreign workers will be devised with the goal of reducing overdependence on foreign workers while attracting more skilled and trained professionals. In order to reduce the number of foreign workers, the government has encouraged the implementation of an IBS. An Industrialized Building System (IBS) is a construction system in which the components are manufactured in a factory, on or off site, positioned, and assembled into complete structures with minimal additional site work. This research has been carried out to discover trends, whether decreasing or increasing, in the employment of foreign labour in the Malaysian construction industry with reference to the Immigration Department of Malaysia. Additionally, interviews with construction labourers at IBS sites and conventional sites were carried out to identify the number of foreign labourers that are used in such projects.