This article first appeared in Forum, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on July 20, 2026 - July 26, 2026
Over the last 15 years, one of Malaysia’s most underestimated and largely unregulated businesses — raking in hundreds of millions of ringgit annually — has been the recruitment and management of unskilled foreign labour.
Malaysian employers are permitted to source unskilled foreign workers from 15 countries, with most of the hiring outsourced to manpower companies. In 2023, amid the post-pandemic hiring surge, Malaysia received 667,418 foreign workers. By May 31, 2024, an estimated 350,000 more had arrived.
Even by a conservative estimate of a RM1,000 service charge per worker, local recruitment firms would have transacted more than RM1 billion in the 18 months starting January 2023. Exactly how much of this amount escaped the taxman’s gaze remains unclear.
Among the 15 source countries, workers from Bangladesh consistently topped the list for one primary reason: it is the only country where workers are willing to pay hugely to secure a job in Malaysia.
In Bangladesh, owners of unskilled labour recruitment agencies are closely linked to politicians. This alignment allows them to secure a slice of the pie and exert influence over government policy regarding labour exports. For instance, under the previous administration of Sheikh Hasina, four members of parliament — including two Cabinet ministers — owned labour recruitment firms that were part of the Bangladesh-Malaysia recruitment arrangement.
If anyone believed things would change under the new administration of Prime Minister Tarique Rahman, the short answer is: not really.
Following Tarique’s visit to Malaysia last month, the big news in Bangladesh is the impending reopening of the labour corridor, which has been shut since June 2024. Reopening this corridor represents a key political milestone for Tarique. Some say Bangladeshi recruitment agents are prepared to pay as much as RM2 billion in political donations to reopen the market.
Their willingness to pay such huge sums points to the lucrative profits from the business.
On paper, Bangladeshi workers should incur minimal costs to work in Malaysia — amounting to a modest BDT5,000 (roughly RM200) paid to the Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training. Beyond official fees, recruitment firms are capped at charging BDT150,000 (about RM4,000) for services, local transport and administrative costs.
The reality on the ground is quite different.
A 2021 World Bank study revealed that the average Bangladeshi worker forks out up to US$2,900 (RM11,600) to reach Malaysia — four times what a worker from Nepal pays for the same journey.
The numbers are even higher in the White Paper on the Bangladesh economy published in 2024 following the fall of the Sheikh Hasina government. The document showed that workers paid up to BDT550,000 (US$5,046) to secure Malaysian jobs. These fees are marked up due to non-transparent, unregulated recruitment chains led by “dalals” — village-level sub-agents feeding the main recruiters.
Given the political elements, the massive profits involved and an opaque recruitment process, this business will continue to face scrutiny in both Dhaka and Kuala Lumpur.
Malaysia currently relies on the Foreign Worker Centralised Management System (FWCMS) to manage the end-to-end recruitment process. Developed by Bestinet Sdn Bhd, the system came under the scrutiny of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) in 2024, unearthing several startling findings.
Chief among them was that Home Ministry officials issued a letter of acceptance (LoA) to Bestinet for the FWCMS in January 2018 at the behest of Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, who was then the deputy prime minister and home minister. Why Ahmad Zahid pushed for the LoA — coincidentally just four months before the pivotal 2018 general election — remains an unanswered question.
Furthermore, due to ongoing disputes, the government did not sign an official contract for the FWCMS until September 2024. For over six years, the Immigration Department actively used the system while Bestinet went unpaid, before the system was finally handed over to the government. The PAC did not probe why Bestinet allowed its system to be used free of charge for so long. During this uncontracted period, the PAC noted 24 unauthorised foreign worker quota approvals, which were deemed a technical fault.
While the FWCMS remains the core system for the Immigration Department, Human Resources Minister Datuk Seri R Ramanan recently announced that the government would also deploy The Universal Recruitment Advanced Platform (Turap) — another system developed by Bestinet — to complement the FWCMS. The necessity for a second, parallel system remains unclear.
As for Bestinet itself, its founder Datuk Seri Aminul Islam Abdul Nor has been reported as wanted in Bangladesh since October 2024 for his alleged involvement in the collection of excessive fees from workers. Aminul has denied any wrongdoing. However, there has been no update on whether his status issue with the Bangladeshi government has been resolved.
Without clarity on Aminul’s legal standing with Dhaka or any explanation of how Turap will eliminate the high fees paid by Bangladeshi workers, the foreign labour business is certain to remain under scrutiny.
In the latest attempt to streamline the process, Ramanan announced that the Ministry of Human Resources will act as a one-stop centre to process all employer applications. He also stated that transit centres would be established to house arriving foreign workers until they are collected by their employers.
Who will manage these transit centres, and whether they will incur additional charges is also not known.
For employers, the ultimate scrutiny will be on whether this entire process will increase their cost of doing business.
M Shanmugam ([email protected]) is a contributing editor at The Edge
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