Malaysian Employers Federation president Syed Hussain Syed Husman said employers from all sectors should be allowed to regularise their undocumented workers.

The earlier version of the scheme, which ended on Dec 31 last year, was limited to the manufacturing, construction, agriculture, services and plantation sectors, he said.

However, Syed Hussain said home minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail did not mention if other sectors will be included in the latest iteration of the scheme.

It was reported the country is still short of a million foreign workers across various sectors.

On Tuesday, Saifuddin announced the extension of the programme which saw more than 410,000 undocumented immigrants sign up to be regularised as legal foreign workers.

Syed Hussain said foreign workers should be allowed to sign up to the programme without the need for their employers to register them.

This way employers keen to employ them could apply to the authorities.

“This will assist the authorities in monitoring and drawing up an action plan to manage the situation,” he told FMT.

He was also thankful the government has pledged to make the conditions to register for the programme more flexible.

“Employers will wait for the detailed process and determine if the new system will address their labour issues. MEF is concerned about execution as this is where delays occur,” he said.

Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers president Soh Thian Lai called the extension of the recalibration programme a good move.

He also proposed the programme be managed by a single authority. It is now being managed by both the home and manpower ministries.