The tightening of immigration regulations and the arrest of illegal immigrants (PATI) that were made on a large scale before being widely reported by the media, have caused Malaysia to no longer be the main choice for Indonesians to come and work here.
They tend to fill job opportunities in the blue-collar sector, which includes jobs that do not require high skills, such as in European countries, Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong.
The Indonesian Ambassador to Malaysia, Datuk Hermono admitted that Malaysia is no longer the main choice for Indonesian workers (TKI) to find work in the past three years to the point where almost none have returned to the country after returning for a long period.
He also said that before the COVID-19 pandemic, there were 1.13 million Indonesians who had complete documents in Malaysia, while around 1.5 million more people did not have documents or were classified as PATI in the country.
Currently, the number of Indonesians in Malaysia is only around 1.5 million or less, regardless of their document status.
Malaysian statistics show that Indonesian foreign workers are no longer the largest group, with Bangladeshis now in first place.
Over the past three years, the number of Indonesian workers in Malaysia has declined sharply. In fact, operations at the Indonesian Embassy, which used to be busy until midnight, now finish as early as 3pm.
