Could you introduce EPS Consultants to our international audience?

EPS was founded 30 years ago (1993) in Singapore to provide recruitment services for both national and foreign knowledge workers. In the early 2000s, EPS expanded to Malaysia, growing into four offices (Kuala Lumpur, Bangsar, Penang, and Johor). Outside of Singapore and Malaysia, EPS also operates in Thailand, the Philippines, Japan, Indonesia, and, most recently, Vietnam.

Could you break down the main services EPS Consultants offers?

We have three main areas of service. The first is our traditional recruitment services, as one of the largest players in Malaysia, with a total staff strength of over 700 employees. Secondly, under EPS Ventures, we look after contract outsourcing, doing payroll for customers like Accenture against a monthly fee. Payroll outsourcing has been growing especially for companies that hire on project-based assignments. We have seen a huge increase in the demand for foreign workers in the country, driven by the language factor, Malaysia itself being a multi-cultural, multi-linguistic hub that attracts many foreign companies. The other part of contract staffing is what we call “Parking” or lifting and shifting the customer’s payroll into our payroll.

Our third business line is blue-collar contract staffing, but this is at a planning stage.

How is Malaysia dealing with the foreign workforce vacuum created by the pandemic?

There has been a lot of change over the past 12 months in the labor market. A year ago, the biggest challenge was the impact of movement restrictions on bringing foreign workers to Malaysia. For two and a half years, companies have been letting go of workers because there was not any work for them, and then, suddenly, Malaysia needed to bring a quarter of a million people back into the country. This process started painfully slowly, with only one vendor ascribed by the government; today, there are more than 200 vendors in charge, but we continue to observe a significant gap in the market for blue-collar workers who are needed in everything from plantations and manufacturing to hospitality and housekeeping. The real problem is that the same people that left are no longer available because they have become more expensive and they have many options.

The Malaysian talent pool for white collars is also crunched. One way to close this gap is to look at creating hybrid working environments to source candidates abroad and allow them to work remotely for the first six months before obtaining their employment pass and sorting out all the necessary logistics to bring them to Malaysia.

What are the main passes that allow foreigners to work in the country?

Employment passes are issued by the Immigration Department under MDEC (Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation), under two statuses: the MSC status gives new (qualifying) companies setting up in Malaysia a five-year + five-year tax-break as well as other incentives, including the unrestricted employment of foreign workers; the amount of foreign workers should not exceed 30%, to also create employment for Malaysians. After MSC Status (tax free) period, the company can apply ICT status, which grants the same allowances on foreign employment, without the tax waive.

You mentioned Malaysia hosts over 150,000 refugees. What work opportunities are available for asylum seekers and refugees?

This is something that nobody talks about: There are 150,000 refugees registered by UNHCR in Malaysia, but these are not legally allowed to work in the country. I have been exploring how we can tap into this existing talent pool and offer work opportunities to people who really need them, but there are many legal complexities around this topic.

What growth opportunities do you identify for EPS moving forward?

EPS Malaysia recorded year-on-year growth in Malaysia and exponential growth experienced by EPS in other countries. 2023 has been, so far, marked by very high demand, but, given the nature of our business, the sale is not made when we sign an agreement, but when we deliver. This is why our focus this year is to accelerate deliveries on permanent placement out of our 350 active companies. At the same time, the contact staffing business has been a strong growth driver – just the other day, we received a request for a headcount of 70 Korean, 70 Japanese, and 120 Chinese, within 30 days.