马来西亚外劳招聘链条的制度性乱象：移工成了买卖商品 Structural Disorder in Malaysia’s Migrant Labour Recruitment Chain: When Workers Become Commodities
- 翁慧敏 Ong Hui Min
- Jan 15
- 10 min read
Updated: Jan 17
马来西亚的经济发展长期以来高度依赖外籍劳工，他们在制造业、建筑业、农业与服务业等领域扮演着不可或缺的角色。然而，这种深度依赖的背后却是一套矛盾重重、长期失衡的管理体系：腐败的跨境招募流程、模糊不清的法律身份界定，以及屡次成效不彰的合法化措施，都让劳工权益与雇主需求难以真正被满足，也进一步削弱国家整体的劳动力治理能力。面对持续扩张的产业需求，一个透明、高效且以实际需求为导向的外籍劳工招聘与管理机制，不仅是保障劳工基本权益的必要基石，更是维护经济稳定、提升产业竞争力，并确保社会秩序的核心支柱。
然而，马来西亚现行的外籍劳工聘用机制在实践中已偏离其初衷，演变成一个由无良中介主导、灰色地带巨大的“赚钱机器”。唐南发明确指出，政府与中介之间长期存在的腐败勾连，使得本应服务于经济需求的外劳招聘过程，沦为一门纯粹的“生意”。
长期关注难民与外籍劳工议题的唐南发，一直都在密切追踪政策的变动与执行状况。以下内容所呈现的，正是基于他多年来的观察与研究所形成的观点与分析。
在唐南发的观察下，这种系统性失灵的核心表现为“配额交易”的盛行，其具体操作如下：
超额引进：部分雇主或中介机构通过虚报或夸大用工需求，向政府申请远超其实际所需的劳工配额（quota）。由于审批过程缺乏透明度和严格的尽职调查，这种操作得以轻易实现。
配额贩卖：这些通过不正当手段获取的“剩余配额”并不会被退回，而是被中介公司当作商品，在市场上公开或私下出售给其他未能获得足够配额但又急需工人的雇主。这使得劳工配额脱离了与真实产业需求的直接关联，成为一种可供投资的“资产”。
劳工困境：在这一运作模式下，首当其冲的受害者是那些被招聘而来的外来劳工。尤其是来自孟加拉和尼泊尔的劳工，在支付了高昂的中介费后被带到马来西亚，却发现根本没有承诺中的工作岗位。例如，在2023年12月，边佳兰（Pengerang）曾发生171名孟加拉劳工集体示威，抗议被中介欺骗，抵达后无工可做。他们被滞留在陌的外来劳工。生的国度，求助无门，陷入极度困境，这在事实上构成了“人口贩卖”的罪行。
总而言之，招聘环节的失序不仅导致了严重的劳工剥削，也直接制造了大量劳工身份的法律困境，使他们在抵达马来西亚的那一刻起，就陷入了“合法”与“非法”的模糊地带。
政策制造的身份陷阱：“合法”与“非法”的任意切换
清晰的法律身份不仅是保障劳工个人权益、使其免受剥削的基本前提，也是国家进行有效社会管理和执法的根本依据。然而，马来西亚现行政策在实践中制造了一个巨大的灰色地带，使得一个名义上“合法”的劳工随时可能被定义为“非法”，其根源在于混乱的劳工分配与管理体系。
一个极为普遍且荒谬的现象是“证件与雇主不符”。理论上，一名持有政府签发的临时就业准证[Visit Pass (Temporary Employment), VP(TE)]的工人应被视为合法劳工。但在现实中，如果执法人员检查发现，该工人所在的实际工作单位与其工作准证上注明的公司名称不符，他便会立即被认定为“非法劳工”并面临被逮捕的风险。
这个问题的根本原因在于先前所提到的配额贩卖，劳工被当作商品一样，从获得配额的公司“转卖”给真正需要用工的企业，但他们的官方证件却未能或无法随之更新。这一系统性缺陷同样也困住了许多的雇主，他们因急需劳动力而通过灰色渠道聘用工人，从而被迫承担非法用工的罚款风险。
与此同时，现行政策对劳工更换雇主设置了极其严格的限制，进一步加剧了他们的脆弱处境。在正常情况下，外籍劳工的身份与其第一位雇主牢牢绑定。除非他们能够向劳工局投诉并成功证明自己遭受了严重的剥削，例如长期被拖欠薪资或遭受虐待，否则几乎不可能获得官方批准以转换雇主。这种制度设计使得劳工在面对不公待遇时，除了“逃跑”成为无证人员外，几乎别无选择。
为了应对日益庞大的无证劳工群体，政府虽推出了劳工合法化（俗称“漂白”）计划(Program Rekalibrasi Tenaga Kerja, RTK)，但这些计划本身也因其高昂的成本与苛刻的门槛而步履维艰。
“漂白计划”的局限性：高昂的成本与苛刻的门槛
政府推行漂白计划是想要解决国内大量无证劳工的滞留问题，将其重新纳入规范化管理，从而稳定劳动力市场并减少社会治安隐患。理论上，这是一项重要的补救措施。然而在实践中，这些计划因其严苛的申请门槛和被层层加码的办理成本，覆盖率和成效十分有限。
尽管“漂白”的官方要求是：劳工需持有有效期至少为 18 个月的护照、无犯罪或黑名单记录、且无从前任雇主处“逃跑”的记录，以及承担官方费用约至少两千令吉。
然而，劳工和雇主在现实中面临的障碍远比官方要求复杂和高昂：
证件门槛过高：许多劳工，尤其是难民群体，他们根本没有护照或护照早已过期，无法满足最基本的申请条件。
纪录问题：许多无证劳工正是因为不堪忍受原雇主的剥削才选择逃离，这一“逃跑”记录反而使他们被视为违规者，失去通过合法化计划获得新生的机会。部分人也可能因早期的逾期逗留等轻微违规行为而被移民局记录在案，从而失去资格。
实际成本暴涨：官方费用总计约两千令吉，但雇主若通过中介办理，实际总花费往往高达七千令吉。这笔费用中包含了高昂的中介服务费，且不排除存在用于疏通关系的“台底钱”。
综合评估下来，他预测该计划的整体成效远未达到预期。高昂的成本让许多中小企业雇主望而却步，宁愿继续承担非法用工的风险。严苛的资格审查则将绝大多数真正需要帮助的无证劳工排除在外。
结论与政策反思
唐南发揭示了马来西亚外籍劳工管理体系中的一个核心困境：一个由不透明的招聘机制、模糊的法律身份界定、失效的合法化途径以及普遍的社会歧视所构成的恶性循环。
为推动建立一个更人道、高效和可持续的管理体系，唐南发认为政府应该：
重建透明、以需求为本的招聘体系：当务之急是彻底打破当前由中介操控、腐败滋生的招聘模式。政府应建立一个按照行业需求、过程完全透明、可追溯的官方引进机制，从源头上杜绝“配额贩卖”和超额引进等问题，确保每一位被引进的劳工都有确切的工作岗位。
加强对中介机构的监管与问责：必须对所有从事劳工招聘的中介机构进行严格的资格审查和持续的行为监管。应设立清晰的问责机制，对于“贩卖”劳工配额、滥收费用、提供虚假工作承诺等违法行为，必须予以严厉打击，并追究其法律责任，以净化市场环境。
唯有打破这种由腐败、剥削和政策失效构成的恶性循环，以尊重人的基本尊严为出发点，马来西亚才能真正化解这种“依赖与困境并存的现实”，确保经济发展与社会公正能够和谐并进。
Malaysia’s economic development has long depended heavily on migrant workers. Migrant workers play indispensable roles in manufacturing, construction, agriculture, and the service sector. Yet behind this dependence lies a deeply contradictory and chronically imbalanced governance system. Corrupt cross-border recruitment processes, ambiguous legal status classifications, and repeatedly ineffective regularisation programmes have prevented both workers’ rights and employers’ needs from being adequately met, while simultaneously weakening the state’s overall capacity to manage its labour force.
As industrial demand continues to expand, a transparent, efficient, and needs-based migrant workers recruitment and management system is not merely essential for protecting workers’ basic rights, it is also a critical pillar for economic stability, industrial competitiveness, and social order.
However, Malaysia’s current migrant workers recruitment mechanism has deviated far from its original intent. It has evolved into a profit-driven system dominated by unscrupulous intermediaries and vast grey zones. Josh Hong points out that long-standing collusion between government actors and labour agents has transformed what should be a demand-oriented recruitment process into a purely commercial enterprise.
As a writer who has followed refugee and migrant workers issues for many years, Josh Hong has closely tracked policy changes and their implementation on the ground. The analysis below reflects insights formed through his sustained observation and research.
Quota Trading: The Core Mechanism of Systemic Failure
At the heart of this systemic breakdown is the widespread practice of “quota trading,” which operates through several key stages:
Over-recruitment
Some employers or labour agents exaggerate or falsify workforce needs when applying for government-approved labour quotas. Due to a lack of transparency and rigorous due diligence in the approval process, such applications are often easily approved, resulting in quotas far exceeding actual demand.
Quota resale
Instead of returning unused quotas, intermediaries treat them as commodities, selling them openly or covertly to other employers who urgently need workers but were unable to secure sufficient quotas themselves. In this way, labour quotas become detached from real industrial demand and are transformed into speculative “assets.”
Workers caught in the system
The most immediate victims of this arrangement are migrant workers themselves. Workers from countries such as Bangladesh and Nepal often pay exorbitant recruitment fees, only to arrive in Malaysia and discover that the promised jobs do not exist.
In December 2023, for example, 171 Bangladeshi workers staged a protest in Pengerang after being deceived by agents and left without work upon arrival. Stranded in a foreign country with no means of redress, they were pushed into extreme precarity conditions that effectively constitute human trafficking.
In short, disorder at the recruitment stage not only facilitates severe labour exploitation but also directly produces legal identity crises, placing workers in a blurred zone between “legal” and “illegal” from the moment they arrive in Malaysia.
Policy-Created Identity Traps: Arbitrary Shifts Between “Legal” and “Illegal”
Clear legal status is the foundation for protecting workers’ rights and enabling effective governance and enforcement. Yet Malaysia’s current policies generate a vast grey area in which a worker who is nominally “legal” can be reclassified as “illegal” at any moment, an outcome rooted in chaotic labour allocation and management systems.
One common and absurd scenario is the mismatch between work permits and actual employers. In theory, a worker holding a government-issued Visit Pass (Temporary Employment), or VP(TE), is legally employed. In practice, if enforcement officers find that the worker’s actual workplace does not match the company listed on the permit, the worker is immediately deemed “illegal” and subject to arrest.
This problem stems directly from quota trading: workers are effectively “resold” from quota-holding companies to businesses that actually need labour, while their official documentation remains unchanged or cannot be updated. This systemic flaw also traps employers, who are desperate for manpower hire through informal channels and consequently face fines for illegal employment.
At the same time, policies governing job mobility place extremely strict limits on workers’ ability to change employers. A migrant worker’s legal status is tightly bound to their first employer. Unless they can file a complaint with the Labour Department and successfully prove severe exploitation, such as prolonged wage theft or abuse, it is nearly impossible to obtain approval to transfer to a new employer. This leaves workers with few options when faced with injustice, often forcing them to flee and become undocumented.
To address the growing population of undocumented workers, the government has introduced regularisation programmes, commonly referred to as “amnesty” or “whitening” schemes, such as the Program Rekalibrasi Tenaga Kerja (RTK). Yet these programmes are themselves plagued by high costs and restrictive eligibility criteria.
The Limits of Regularisation Programmes: High Costs and Stringent Barriers
The stated aim of regularisation programmes is to bring undocumented workers back into the formal system, stabilise the labour market, and reduce social risks. In theory, they represent an important corrective measure. In practice, however, their impact has been severely limited by rigid requirements and escalating costs.
Officially, applicants must meet several conditions: possession of a passport valid for at least 18 months, no criminal record or blacklisting, no record of absconding from previous employers, and payment of official fees amounting to at least RM2,000.
In reality, the obstacles faced by workers and employers are far more complex and burdensome:
Documentation barriers
Many workers, especially refugees, do not have passports, or their documents have long expired, making them ineligible from the outset.
Problematic records
Many undocumented workers fled abusive employers, yet this act of “absconding” became a mark against them, disqualifying them from regularisation. Others may be barred due to minor past infractions such as overstaying their visas.
Escalating real costs
While official fees total around RM2,000, employers who rely on agents often end up paying as much as RM7,000. These costs include inflated service fees and may also involve informal payments to “facilitate” approvals.
Based on these factors, Josh Hong predicts that the programme’s overall effectiveness falls far short of expectations. High costs deter small and medium-sized enterprises, which may prefer to risk penalties for illegal employment. Meanwhile, strict eligibility criteria exclude the very workers most in need of protection.
Conclusion and Policy Reflections
Josh Hong exposes a central dilemma in Malaysia’s migrant workers governance: a vicious cycle formed by opaque recruitment systems, ambiguous legal identities, ineffective regularisation pathways, and pervasive social prejudice.
To move toward a more humane, efficient, and sustainable system, he argues that the government must take decisive action:
Rebuild a transparent, demand-driven recruitment system
The most urgent task is to dismantle the agent-dominated, corruption-prone recruitment model. The government should establish a fully transparent, traceable, and industry-based recruitment mechanism that directly reflects labour demand, eliminates quota trading and over-recruitment, and ensures that every worker brought into the country has a confirmed job placement.
Strengthen regulation and accountability of intermediaries
All labour recruitment agencies must be subject to rigorous licensing, continuous oversight, and clear accountability mechanisms. Practices such as selling labour quotas, overcharging fees, and making false job promises must be met with strict enforcement and legal consequences in order to restore integrity to the system.
Only by breaking this cycle of corruption, exploitation, and policy failure. By placing human dignity at the centre of governance can make Malaysia truly resolve the contradiction of dependence amid precarity, ensuring that economic growth and social justice progress hand in hand.
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