KUCHING: The Human Resource Ministry has been urged to do a thorough study before deciding if it should act against employers who hire more foreign workers instead of locals in various sectors.
In making the call Kuching Coffeeshop and Restaurants Owners Association committee member Kapitan Tan Yit Sheng said truth be told, it is difficult to hire locals to work in coffee shops.
“It is because locals try to avoid taking up jobs that involve cleaning, waiting on tables, or collecting rubbish.
“They (locals) are choosy when it comes to jobs like this. But foreign workers are not so particular.
“Therefore, I think the HR Minister needs to carefully investigate the matter as what it reported does not seem to paint the correct picture,” he told New Sarawak Tribune.
For Tan, as a coffeeshop operator, he said if he were given a choice of course he would hire locals.
“I will definitely choose to hire local workers instead of foreigners. This is because some costs can be saved. For foreigners, we need to provide them with accommodation compared to hiring locals,” he said.
“A lot of local workers do not want to work in coffee shops and it also gives employers a ‘headache’,” he said.
To overcome the matter, he suggested the HR Ministry come out with training programmes to attract locals to work in these services sector.
“Instead of taking action against the employer, they must know the reason why coffee shop, restaurant owners or the other sectors choose foreigners over local workers.
“Probably, the HR Ministry can provide them with training and retrain the locals who wish to work in the five sectors (manufacturing, construction, plantation, agriculture and services).
“Things like this help to keep workers up to the standard and think that should be the way. Do not always blame the owners of these five sectors on why they choose foreigners instead of local workers,” he said.
Earlier, HR Minister V Sivakumar was reported as saying that action will be taken against employers who dismiss Malaysian workers in order to replace them with foreign workers.
He said the government’s recent relaxation on employment of foreign workers was not to replace locals with foreign workers but instead to meet manpower needs in five critical sectors – manufacturing, construction, plantation, agriculture and services.
Meanwhile, Sarawak Housing and Real Estate Developers’ Association (SHEDA) Kuching branch chairman Datuk Sim Kiang Chiok also said that it is difficult to fill locals in 3D (dirty, dangerous, difficult) jobs.
“We have gone through the Covid-19 lockdowns and even before the pandemic, 3D jobs in these five critical sectors are difficult to fill with locals.
“Now that we are at the endemic stage, and opening up of borders, foreign workers are being engaged and employed in Malaysia to do the 3D jobs,” he said.
Sim is also of the opinion that if local workers are being replaced by foreign workers in the five critical sectors, it may be due to rearrangement of the workforce in each of organisation.
“We would know that in any operation, be it in a factory or hotel, local workers and foreign do not mix well. So most organisations would separate their work processes into different groups between local and foreign workers.
“This is so that the local workers could be reassigned to different works within the organisation and not necessarily be laid off,” he said.
He also said if there are local workers available to do the work, foreign workers should also not be deployed.
“To pay our local workers higher to do the 3D jobs would increase our cost of doing business and might cause our industries to be less competitive in the world market.
“Therefore, our industries can reduce these foreign workers if we automate our industries, but this takes time and capital,” said Sim.
