Asian Financial Crisis

By Nelson Graves

KUALA LUMPUR, (Reuters) - Ahmad Mohamed Qali is staring Asia’s economic future in the face and does not like what he sees.

“I came from far away to work,” the 35-year-old Iranian civil engineer says at a dusty construction site in the heart of Malaysia’s capital. “Then suddenly the ringgit (currency) crashed and everybody said there would be no jobs. So I’m worried.”

Asia’s economic crisis, so far played out largely in boardrooms and policymakers’ offices, has a much larger human dimension that has only begun to take shape.

At least two million Asians will lose their jobs, according to JobStreet, a private employment agency in Kuala Lumpur.
Hundreds of thousands of the jobless will be foreigners — workers who migrated to Asia’s booming capitals during the go-go years but who now, in many cases, face large-scale deportation.

“Inevitably there is going to be high unemployment, particularly in construction,” said Irene Fernandez, a spokeswoman for Tenaganita, a non-governmental organisation in Malaysia devoted to women workers’ issues.

THREE MILLION JOBLESS IN INDONESIA

Most of the layoffs are yet to come. But the effects of the downturn are already being felt in Indonesia and Thailand.
At least one million workers in Indonesia are expected to lose their jobs this year, pushing the number of unemployed to three million, Jakarta’s Manpower Ministry said last week.

About 70,000 foreign workers are registered in Indonesia but experts believe many more are there illegally.
In Thailand, the government has announced that the 221,460 registered foreign workers will be sent home when their term expires in June. The number includes 198,200 from Myanmar (Burma), 18,112 from Cambodia and 7,905 from Laos.
These do not include about one million others who work illegally in Thailand, mainly in the fishery and agriculture sectors and as servants.

Large numbers of Thais are working elsewhere in Southeast Asia. The government estimates there are 100,916 in Taiwan, 17,770 in Singapore, 17,671 in Brunei, 10,099 in Japan, 8,860 in Malaysia, 3,960 in Hong Kong and 1,456 in South Korea.

MALAYSIA BACKTRACKS ON DEPORTATION THREAT

Malaysian Deputy Home Minister Tajol Rosli Ghazali touched off a controversy last month when he said one million foreign workers would be sent home. Short of labour for a decade, Malaysia stopped recruiting foreign workers last August.
Only 1.2 million of the estimated two million foreign workers are registered with the Immigration Department, and their work permits expire in August. Most are Indonesian.

The deputy minister’s statement raised eyebrows around the region, especially in Indonesia where hundreds of thousands of returning citizens would only exacerbate its own unemployment woes.

“Malaysia can cope with the problem,” Indonesia Embassy spokesman Achmad Nawawi Hasbi said. “If they went home, it would add to the unemployment problem.”

Kuala Lumpur has since backtracked and said it hopes to shift most of the foreign workers from hard-hit sectors such as construction and hotels to oil palm plantations and factories.

“We are not going to expel them really,” Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said after meeting Indonesian President Suharto last month. “We are doing our best to inform them of the situation and then transfer them to plantation areas.”
“I’m not worried,” said Benjie Cubol, a 38-year-old Filipino engineer in Kuala Lumpur. “One million can’t be sent home.”

WHAT TO DO WITH JOBLESS FOREIGNERS?

But Tenaganita’s Fernandez is not so optimistic. “I see a worsening situation in July when the work permits expire, when visible layoffs will be seen,” she said.

Fernandez said the government was in a bind — whether to detain unemployed immigrants after their work permits expire, or send them home.

“The Indonesians are not going to go back. The situation there is worsening and very tense. Here it’s better. The question is, how are we going to contain them? We can’t just put them out to sea.”

PHILIPPINES CALLS STRATEGY SESSION

More than 30,000 Filipinos working abroad could lose their jobs due to the crisis, said the Philippines presidential palace. The palace has said it will hold a high-level meeting to map strategy.

South Korea is expecting about one million jobless in March. Among the measures it is contemplating: gradually cutting the foreign workforce from its current level of 270,000.

Singapore counts some 450,000 foreign work permit holders, about 20 percent of the workforce. The migrant workers are largely from Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, India, Myanmar, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and China.

Hong Kong only keeps track of foreign domestic helpers. Filipinas are the biggest expatriate working community, numbering 138,000. There are also 24,7000 Indonesians and 5,100 Thais working as maids.

STRONG TAKA DRAWS BACK BANGLADESHIS

One group of foreign workers who are more willing than others to go home are from Bangladesh, according to Fernandez.
The Bangladeshi taka has gained ground against many of the Southeast Asian currencies, cutting into repatriated earnings.
Fernandez said there were 800,000 Bangladeshis in Malaysia. Her group is negotiating with contractors, urging them to offer three months pay to Bangladeshis and then send them home.

“The Bangladeshis are going home for holidays and not coming back,” Qali said.