Labour shortages in the rural agricultural sector - a search for explanations and solutions

Abstract

One phenomenon which has increasingly come to the fore as representing a dramatic reversal of previous trends and as having serious especially for the future development of Malaysia is the growing labour shortages. While the concern of the early seventies was labour and labour under-utilization, evidence has been accumulating in the last couple of years of increasing shortages of labour - particularly in the padi and smallholding areas, in the commercial estate sector, in manufacturing industries, in construction and even in competition among land development schemes to attract settlers. Employer's, government ministry and agency officials and poiicymakers and planners have lately begun expressing deep concern over the labour supply situation. But since this tightening of the labour market caught the nation more or less unawares, data monitoring the magnitude of the problem are generally lacking assessments are marred by conceptual and definitional problems, the evidence is still patchy and inadequate, and the search if now on for explanations and solutions.