Malaysia is looking to ease a pandemic-driven labour crunch that has choked its key plantation and manufacturing industries by hastening the hiring of migrant workers, reports The Straits Times. The country is expected to hire nearly 180,000 workers over the next six weeks, according to Human Resources Minister M. Saravanan. A special committee will reportedly meet daily from 15 April to speed up the approval process. Malaysia froze the hiring of foreign workers in the past two years to stem the spread of Covid-19, leading to an acute labour shortage. There are approximately 1.17 million registered foreign workers in Malaysia, down from 1.7 million before the pandemic, Saravanan said.