Obstacles to developing local expertise

It is very sad to see the factories which in the past 2 decades were hiring assembly and frontline operators in the semiconductor has lately been given permision to hire for engineering nd maintainence positions! Many years ago, in 1983, I brought my university mate who has a degree in Phyics for interview for process engineer. He was turned down due to his red IC! and was given a run around to get a work permit from Labour ministry. Today, we have so many local engineering graduates, yet, I see the semiconductor companies hiring Filipino technicians and engineers! Why? Who allowed this to happen? Those days we had manangement trainee, engineering trainee scheme to train local graduates into process engineers and production executives. The Human Resources depts take n easy way by dealing with agents of foreign workers recruitment companies!