A new opportunity has opened up for Bangladeshi recruiting agencies to send workers to Malaysia, as the Malaysian government moves toward providing equal access for all licensed agencies from Bangladesh.
For years, recruiting agencies from other countries enjoyed greater opportunities to participate in Malaysia’s worker recruitment process. This is because when it came to Bangladesh, Malaysia repeatedly limited the number allowed to operate in their market. Following a 2021 Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), Putrajaya authorised only about 100 Bangladeshi agencies to send workers, out of around 2500.
With the selection criteria that was used not being very clear, this was likened to a 'syndicate' that inflated migration costs, limited fair competition, and left the vast majority of agencies in the sector excluded from the process.
Successive Bangladesh governments have been urging Malaysia to ensure equal and fair treatment for all legally licensed Bangladeshi recruiting agencies - not for special favours, but treatment on par with the rest. No other country's recruitment agencies face such limited access.
One reason might be the sheer number of Bangladeshis that have flooded the Malaysian labour market over the years.
As of June 2025, there were over 800,000 Bangladeshi workers with valid work permits in Malaysia, making them by far the largest group of foreign workers in the country. According to data from the Malaysian Ministry of Home Affairs, Bangladeshis account for 37% of Malaysia's total foreign workforce.
According to the Ministry of Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment, the issue was extensively discussed during the 3rd Bangladesh–Malaysia Joint Working Group (JWG) meeting held in Dhaka on May 21–22, this year. At the meeting, the Malaysian delegation assured that Bangladesh would be treated on par with other labour-sending countries under uniform selection standards.
Following up on that commitment, Malaysia formally shared its freshly updated ‘Recruiting Agent Selection Criteria’ with Bangladesh on Tuesday (Oct 28). The same criteria will also apply to agencies from India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Myanmar, ministry officials said.
The strictness of the new criteria however, raise questions as to how many Bangladeshi agencies would actually manage to meet them.
Under the new guidelines, agencies must demonstrate at least five years of satisfactory operational experience for obtaining their license, along with proof of sending a minimum of 3,000 workers abroad during that period.
They must also have sent workers to at least three different destination countries.
Each recruiting agency must possess valid licenses from the relevant authorities in Bangladesh for training, assessment, recruitment, and overseas employment activities, as well as a ‘Certificate of Good Conduct’ issued by the competent authority of the country.
The criteria further stipulate that agencies must have no record of involvement in forced labour, human trafficking, labour law violations, extortion, money laundering, or any unethical migration practices. They must also operate their own training and assessment centre with accommodation, technical training facilities, and induction modules for outgoing workers.
In addition, the recruiting agencies must provide letters of appreciation from at least five international employers attesting to their satisfaction in working with the agency in question.
Each agency must also maintain a permanent office — in operation for at least three years — with a minimum floor space of 10,000 square feet, and suitable infrastructure for worker selection and recruitment.
Finally, agencies have to provide documentary evidence of having followed the law and due process in their recruitment practices, including those related to Malaysia.
According to the Ministry of Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment, the next step would be to send the names of all Bangladeshi recruiting agencies meeting these criteria to the Malaysian government, for inclusion in the list of approved agencies.
Qualified recruiting agencies have been requested to submit applications along with all supporting documents to the Ministry of Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment by November 7.
Critics fear that the latest changes, while framed as "ethical", could lead to a new syndicate. Activists are concerned that the barriers to entry remain too high, and that could simply work to the benefit of another small group of powerful agencies.