Industrial Concrete Products Bhd’s (ICP) concrete pile production has been affected by the labour shortage, with output down by 10 per cent to 15 per cent from its normal production of 70,000 tonnes monthly.

Managing director Lim Yong Keat said since the country's amnesty and repatriation of illegal foreign workers ended on July 31, some 250 of the company’s contract workers left the country, with 500 workers remaining.

“The production has been below target for the past two or three months (due to labour shortage),” he told theedgedaily.com after ICP’s AGM and EGM on Nov 13.

Lim said the company was recruiting 300 foreign contract workers, with the first batch of 40 workers from India arriving soon.

“We should resume our normal (production) volume (in December),” he added.

On whether the labour shortage has affected orders from ICP’s customers, Lim said it had declined by 10 per cent monthly since September.

“The decline is not due to the labour shortage alone, it’s also due to the soft market,” he added.

Lim said piling works in the construction industry were not that seriously affected by the labour shortage, as it required fewer workers unlike bricklaying and plastering.

For ICP’s first quarter ended Sept 30, 2002, sales of its concrete piles were about RM20 million monthly, he added.

The decline in orders would only be reflected later in its financial performance, “maybe in December”, said Lim, as the orders secured since September would not take effect immediately.

For the first quarter, ICP posted a net profit of RM3.40 million compared with the RM1.66 million a year earlier. Turnover was RM60.95 million, against RM53.23 million.

Earnings per share was 3.40 sen, versus 1.68 sen a year earlier.