KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 4 2022 – FGV Holdings Berhad is recruiting an additional 16,000 migrant workers to solve the labour shortage issue for its plantation business by the end of 2023.
The arrival of those workers will further strengthen FGV’s growth trajectory via an expected increase in its plantation yields and productivity, the company said in a statement today.
According to FGV, migrant workers are recruited from the source countries such as India, Indonesia, and Nepal. As of October 2022, FGV has received a total of 4,980 workers from India and Indonesia.
“In order to expedite the arrival of migrant workers, FGV chartered private flights to bring over 531 new recruits from India in September. The initiative in bringing over migrant workers through chartered flights will be executed throughout the year,” it said.
Meanwhile, FGV expects another 3,000 new workers in November.
FGV began its recruitment in July and to date has recruited 68 per cent of the workers and expects to welcome 10,000 additional new recruits by year-end and another 6,000 workers by 2023.
According to the Group Chief Executive Officer of FGV Datuk Mohd Nazrul Izam Mansor, FGV’s recruitment is delayed for two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“While adhering to stringent processes and procedures, we can now expect more workers to arrive to keep our production and plantation activities on track and to improve our productivity and yields,” he said.
According to him, the recruitment process is conducted based on recently revised FGV’s Guidelines and Procedures for Responsible Recruitment and Employment of Migrant Workers. This includes prohibiting recruitment agents from charging workers any recruitment fees.
Upon arriving in Malaysia, recruits will undergo a four-day induction and orientation programme at FGV’s One Stop Centre (OSC) in Gemencheh, Negeri Sembilan before being assigned to one of FGV’s estates for three months of training.
New recruits will be trained in all types of fieldwork such as harvesting, fertilising, pruning, loading fruit bunches into transporters, plant nursery activities, and seed planting. They will receive daily wages during their training programs according to the current minimum order of the Malaysian government.
Although manual labour is still a major component of palm oil plantations, FGV has increased its digitalisation and mechanisation activities to modernise its plantations and mills using technology. Drones have been used for monitoring, collecting plantation data and managing weeds via aerial spraying.
FGV has also developed other digitalisation methods which includes a positioning device, Geotagger to assist oil palm replanting activity and digital tracking of harvesting, manuring and Fresh Fruit Bunch (FFB) transportation.
“The focus for our Upstream operations is to record higher productivity and lowers costs by improving yields through digitalisation and mechanisation initiatives. We made good progress on our mechanisation plans and now have 115,000 ha landbank fully mechanised using the Mechanised Assisted Infield Collection (MAIC) method.
With the digitalisation and mechanisation plans in place, moving forward, FGV hopes to rely less on manual labour that would eventually alleviate our reliance on migrant workers,” he added.
In line with the current shortage of foreign workers in Malaysia across various industries, FGV also hopes that both Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Human Resources Resources will collaborate with the private sectors in accelerating the recruitment process of foreign workers due to the high dependence of many sectors of the country on foreign workers, especially among labour-intensive sectors such as plantation, manufacturing, retails and others.
— Akses Malaysia
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