The authorities in Malaysia say that some one million foreign workers currently employed in the country may have to be deported as the affects of the economic crisis gripping East Asia become more acute. Many of those facing expulsion come from Indonesia where it's estimated that up to two million people have already lost their jobs since the region's currency and stock market melt-down began last July. Meanwhile in Thailand, the government has launched a campaign to root out illegally employed workers and ensure jobs are kept for its own nationals. Our South-East Asia correspondent, Simon Ingram, reports:

What began as a crisis for South-East Asia's affluent middle classes is now perculating down to lower levels of society in dramatic fashion. With the region's once booming economies now stalled, jobs are being shared at an alarming rate and governments are bracing themselves for some painful social and political consequences.

In Malaysia the deputy Home Minister, Rosli Ghazali, is quoted in local newspapers as saying that about one million expatriate workers or about one tenth of the country's total workforce could expect to be deported over the coming year. The Minister said that an equivalent number of local people were now threatened with unemployment because of the economic slowdown and the foreigners have to make way for them.

Bangladeshi, Indian and Thai nationals are among those affected but the majority are likely to be Indonesians whose return home will aggravate the already alarming rise in unemployment witnessed there. One estimate published today says that up to two million Indonesians have lost their jobs in the six months' since the crisis struck.

Many were unskilled construction workers in the capital, Jakarta, who've been forced to return to their villages. The consequent hardship being felt across the country, coupled as it is with the devastation caused by a severe drought, have given rise to fears of popular unrest.