According to data from Department of Statistic Malaysia, the percentage of foreign workers in Malaysia recorded a decrease from 2017 to 2018. The reduction was from 1.87 million to 1.76 million or 5.79%.
The number of male foreign workers is tremendously higher than their female counterpart, 2.88 million to 739,552. Interestingly, there were 1,516 male foreign workers recorded working as housemaid in Malaysia for the year 2018.
On the other hand, only 4.5% of the female foreign workers were in the construction sector. But for the males, construction sector (23.8%) were their second top choice behind the manufacturing sector (35.1%).
Overall, majority of the foreign workers in Malaysia were from Indonesia (40.38%), followed by Nepal (21.74%) and Bangladesh (14.36%). But, majority of the Indonesian workers in Malaysia were in the farming sector.
Source: Malaysia Indicator