KUALA LUMPUR: The government should consider simplifying the process of hiring foreign employees to help ease the acute shortage of labour in local eateries, says Malaysian Indian Restaurant Owners Association (PRIMAS).
The proposal was some of the recommendations brought up by its president T. Muthusamy during a meeting with the Council of Eminent Persons (CEP) at Menara Ilham, today on the issue.
According to Muthusamy, the government’s policy to prioritise local workers and reduce the number of foreign workers has become a problem for local eateries with some of them expected to close down due to shortage of workers.
“The industry is facing a shortage of workers especially in the Indian restaurants where the shortage is acute, we can see many closures, downsizing and some of them having to reduce operating hours due to the insufficient number of workers.
“I am here today to ask the government to find a new mechanism, to simplify the process and reduce the cost of hiring foreign workers to help our local eateries,” he told reporters after the meeting.
Muthusamy added that at the moment, owners of eateries had to go through a complicated process to meet the requirements stipulated by the government.
“This is a major problem, PRIMAS gets 10 to 15 calls daily from members who are complaining and asking on how to get approval. At the moment, the majority of our members are facing an average of 40-50 percent shortage in the number of workers,” he said.
He informed that owners also looked for alternatives and tried to hire locals with job advertisements but it seemed that locals were not interested.
Meanwhile, Malaysian Employers Federation (MEF) president Tan Sri Azman Shah Haron said the government would need to restructure and fix the labour policies to avoid confusion among the industry players.
"At the moment, the policies are not clear and coherent, it has to be rigid as it has become the source of confusion among the employers, employees, foreign workers and there are parties who are taking advantage from this situation," he said.
Explaining further, MEF Executive Director Datuk Shamsuddin Bardan said they had proposed the usage of older work force (retirees) and the policy of rehiring workers even up to 65 years, to CEP members.
"Meaning people who are retiring at the age of 60 can continue working. And if we use the 65 (age) as a benchmark, then we will have additional one million workers who are above 60 who can continue working.
"For the women workforce, currently we are at 51 per cent, if we increase the participation rate, then we will have additional one million (workers). More or less, we can have additional two million in the workforce which are currently not being used very much," he said.
On another note, he stressed that Malaysians should not be paid the minimum wage and instead be paid wages based on their certified skills.
"If someone has the Malaysian Skills Certificate (SKM) Level 1, he should not be paid the minimum wage as the foreign workers, he should be paid up to RM1,300. Same if one has SKM Level 4 or higher, they should be paid even higher," he said.
When asked about the council's reaction to this, Shamsuddin said the members welcomed the idea but they would leave it to the industry and stakeholders to have a proper discussion so that the government could be fully briefed on what is required. - Bernama