Das Geschäft mit der Arbeitsmigration in Malaysia

Abstract

Malaysia has long been an importer as well as an exporter of labour. There are more than 2 Million labour migrants in Malaysia today with nearly half of them being undocumented migrants, mainly from neighbouring Indonesia. The influx of this large number illegal migrant labour into the country has long been seen as a major problem by governnemt officials resulting in a couple of policy measure to uncover and repatriate illegal migrants throughout the country. Different government operations had been carried out since the eraly 1990s culminating in mass expulsion of illegal migrants in 2002. The article is aimed to set these government policies in the wider context of Malaysia’s economic development of export-oriented industrialization arguing that illegal migration is as much part of its labour market as is the legal influx of labour migrants. The often contradictory measures aimed at the problem of illegal migrationcan be traced back to the different economic interest that characterize this field of policies.