Automation can help reduce foreign workers.

IRAINI (not her real name) clocks in for work at a government hospital in Petaling Jaya at 7am and is out at 7pm before continuing her cleaning job at the adjacent private wing.

Her hours finally end at 10pm, she takes the bus home and looks forward to Sunday - her only day off in a week.

The Indonesian is serving a two-year contract with a local company which provides the services of general workers, for a monthly pay of about RM800.

She foots the rent and other living expenses and absconding from her employer is the last thing on her mind.

Meanwhile, an established manufacturing company which had just a week before, picked up a busload of 40 …