Soppoa welcomes statement on recruiting Cambodian workers
KUCHING: The Sarawak Oil Palm Plantation Owners Association ( Soppoa) welcomes the recent statement made by Human Resources Minister Dato Sri Richard Riot Jaem on roping in Cambodians to overcome labour shortage in the state’s palm oil industry.
The association also concurred with the minister’s statement that the industry here was in dire need of at least 30,000 workers, mainly harvesters and general workers, saying recruitment of other nationals was timely.
“The palm oil industry fully recognises the contributions by Indonesian workers who have been the only source of labourers for the industry here for over 40 years and as more of them now prefer to stay and work in their own country, the number of Indonesian workers coming has greatly reduced.
“The industry will continue to work closely with our Indonesian counterparts in the industry on the labour issues as their contributions are still the core for the industry in Sarawak,” said a Soppoa spokesperson in a statement yesterday.
He said the industry was very happy and pleased to note that the
The palm oil industry fully recognises the contributions by Indonesian workers who have been the only source of labourers for the industry here for over forty years and as more of them now prefer to stay and work in their own country, the number of Indonesian workers coming has greatly reduced. Soppoa spokesperson
Ministry of Human Resources was trying to find ways to bring Cambodians and other nationalities to work here.
“Over on our part, the industry is continuing its pursuit of mechanisation as a means to reduce dependency on workers, but this will mainly be in the areas of evacuation of fresh fruit bunches ( FFBs) from the estates.”
Based on experience of the palm oil industry so far, the spokesperson pointed out that Indonesian workers were best suited to carry out physically demanding field works, especially FFB harvesting and evacuation.
“Soppoa has also made appeals to the state government on the opening up of the palm oil sector in Sarawak for other nationalities to overcome the shortage of workers and is hopeful for such a breakthrough.
“It is also noted that not only the large estates face shortage of workers, the smallholders too also face similar problem for their plots, especially harvesters and general workers,” he said.
He added that as informed by Riot, due the shortage of workers in the industry here, around RM2 billion a year would go to waste in Sarawak and this would only continue to rise as the industry continues to grow in the coming years.
“Soppoa looks forward to see positive development from the Ministry of Human Resources’ efforts to address worker shortage issues in the palm oil industry in Sarawak and appeals to the state government to consider opening up of the sector to other nationalities in the near future for the smooth development of the industry.”