Malaysia and Bangladesh have agreed to establish a more transparent recruitment process for Bangladeshi workers, Bangladesh’s Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus announced last week following his meeting with Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim.
In an interview with Malaysia’s state news agency Bernama, Yunus acknowledged flaws in the existing recruitment system, which was criticised for being inefficient and prone to exploitation. He also stressed the need to ‘clean it up’ to ensure fairness for both sides.
Yunus added that the two countries had a ‘very elaborate discussion’ to establish a more efficient and transparent recruitment process.
Yunus emphasised that while Malaysia relies on migrant labour to meet workforce demands, Bangladesh also seeks guarantees that its citizens are hired with transparency and work 'with dignity, proper rights, and benefits' abroad.
“Malaysia needs people, and we need to have these people come here to make a living for themselves and their families. So both sides need each other. There is no shortage of goodwill. It’s a question of putting together and seeing where things go wrong, and then we track and clean it up,” he said.
Yunus, a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and head of Bangladesh’s caretaker government, conducted an official visit to Malaysia from August 11 to 13 to strengthen bilateral ties between the two countries.
Aside from being its second-largest trading partner, Bangladesh is Malaysia’s main source of foreign labour, with more than 898,000 Bangladeshis working primarily in construction, manufacturing, agriculture, and service industries, according to recent government data. It is also estimated that 400,000 of these workers are vulnerable to malpractices by recruitment agents and employers.
The Malaysian government froze recruitment of foreign workers in May last year, partly due to numerous allegations of Bangladeshi workers defrauded by criminal syndicates. The syndicates, which allegedly consist of hundreds of recruitment agents, charged workers fees of up to $5,000 for non-existent jobs, leaving thousands stranded without work in Malaysia.
Malaysia eventually reopened its labour market to Bangladesh in May 2025, with only a limited number of Bangladeshi agencies authorised to send workers. In August, the Malaysian Home Ministry launched the Multiple Entry Visa (MEV) facility for Bangladeshi workers to help streamline visa applications and reduce the risk of visa misuse.