The
article is about the shortage of the labour and the problem that lead from the
shortage of the labour. Most of the labour that work in palm oil plantation
field in Malaysia are from Indonesia but now according to The Star, the palm
oil in Indonesia are booming and it lead to the shortage of labour in Malaysia
palm oil field as they will get higher paid if they work in their own country. The
technology of the machine now is not high enough for example the cantas, fresh
fruit bunches harvesters and many other different machine. Cantas is a machine
that are able to help to harvest the palm oil fruits but cantas today only can
reach five meter so it is unable to harvest on the palm oil fruits or fruits
that are grow on above five meter so it still need labour to help on harvesting
as there many palm oil tree that are taller than five meter. Palm oil tree that
are below five meter is consider as the young palm oil tree and for those palm
oil tree that are over 15 years all are above five meter high and the cantas
today are unable to help to harvest the palm oil.
The
main reason that causes shortage of the Indonesia labour is because of the
booming of palm oil in Indonesia. The substitution for the Indonesia labour can
be the labour from other country such as Bangladesh, Myanmar and other country
that do not have many palm oil field. Local people and the machine that can
help in palm oil sector can be the substitution of the Indonesia worker too. Based
on what I observed, the demand for the Indonesia labour is more elastic as
there are many substitutions for it. Besides that, the supply of Indonesia
labour in this situation is shortage.
The
supply of the palm oil will decrease as the producers do not have enough workers
to work for them due to the shortage of the labour. The market of the palm oil
will not reach the market equilibrium as the supply are not able to reach the
demand of the market and I think it may make the price of the palm oil increase
as there is a shortage.
Government
should interfere in the labour shortage problem by making agreement with other
country to ensure that their citizen get a good and fair treatment in our
country even they work as labour in our country. This will give the easement to
the producers that need to employ foreign workers. There are many cases that
the Indonesia labour do not get fair treatment in our country as they are given
a lot of work but only get very low paid same goes to the cases of the
Indonesia maid being torture in our country. Besides that, the foreign labour
are being paid less than what actually they worth as they actually worth more.
It is not fair for the Indonesia labour as they work very hard in our country.
Besides that, government should ensure that our country will be in safe
condition if many of the foreign labour comes to our country as there are quite
a lot of criminal cases happened due to the foreign labours.
Furthermore,
Malaysia government has set a minimum wages at RM 900 for the salary of all the
foreign workers to ensure that the foreign labour able to get the paid they
should get which mean there is a price floor for the salary for the foreign
labour so more labours are willing to work in Malaysia. The rate of minimum
wages increases then the unemployment will increase too as the basic salary for
the foreign labour is higher and the employers are not willing to employ more
labours as they need to pay more for the labours if they employ more labours.
In this situation, the market failure will occur too as the supply of labours in Malaysia will decrease due to the
shortage of labours as the employers are not willing to employ more labours this
will affect the supply of the palm oil to decrease as there are not enough of
labour working in the palm oil sector. This will cause the shortage of the
labours in the market and this will make the market of the labours could not
reach the market equilibrium as the quantity demand will exceed the quantity of
supply.
Price
that under the price floor is the black market which means it is illegal. Black
market occurs in this situation also as the foreign labour do not employed by
the employers so they do not have work because of the minimum wages that set by
government. The foreign labour will become illegal labour to work in our
country so that the employers do not need to follow the minimum wages rule by
employing the illegal labours. Besides that, large amount of money need to be
paid by the employer for the procedure on employing the foreign labour and to
employ the foreign labour so there are many illegal foreign labour in the
market today as the employer can save more money if they employ the illegal
foreign labour. Besides that, some of the legal foreign labours do not get high
paid in their current work so they willing to change their work and become
illegal workers to get higher paid in other places and this occurs the black
market. If there is the illegal worker in the market then the black market will
occurs.
Lastly,
government should also invest more on increasing technology so that those
company are able to come out more machine that got no or lowest limitation that
able to fully replace the foreign workers or labour workforce. Government can
find more expert or professor from oversea to invest new machine that are very
high technology and able to replace and solve the problem of shortage of labours.
For example come out with new cantas that able to harvest every fruit on higher
tree like 15 to 20 meter height tree.