KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 6 — Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) has revealed it is conducting a feasibility study on whether or not it is possible for business outlets and restaurants to employ more locals in its workforce.
Speaking to Malay Mail, Kuala Lumpur mayor Tan Sri Mhd Amin Nordin said the study, which will take three to six months to complete, aims to find out why business owners find it very difficult to employ locals in their premises.
“We are conducting a study to know why it is so difficult for business owners to employ locals, and this goes for business operators across all ethnicities — Malay, Chinese or Indians — all of them rely on foreign workers.
“We have issued a notice for business operators to try employing at least 50 per cent local workers as the first step. They need to try their best [to achieve this target] for the next three to six months.
“We are not going to take immediate action as we know it is very difficult for business owners to entice locals to work for them,” Mhd Amin added.
The study is DBKL’s response to many public complaints regarding the influx of foreign workers in shops and restaurants. The mayor claimed the issue has gone viral on social media platforms.
At this stage of the study, Mhd Amin said DBKL has engaged with many business operators to listen to their side of the story and to the issues pertaining to the employment of locals.
“From our preliminary engagements with the business operators, we found that there are a lot of employment opportunities in the sector but the locals don’t seem interested. They prefer higher end jobs.
“One operator who tried to employ more locals complained that the locals are not as disciplined or hardworking. Unlike foreign workers, they said the locals don’t have the stamina to work late into the night or do physically taxing work such as heavy lifting in wet markets.
“Others complained of truancy and taking too much medical leaves. It is easy for the public to blame business operators and foreign workers but do the locals even want the job?” Mhd Amin pondered.
At the same time the mayor also pointed out that business owners are partially responsible over the scenario as they seem to take the easy way out when it comes to manpower and simply employ foreign workers to suit their needs.
In DBKL’s visit to Petaling Street, Mhd Amin noticed there are many Bangladeshi workers taking ownership of the stores and stalls there.
He said that for small time businesses such as those found in Kuala Lumpur’s Chinatown, the business owners should not have allowed their foreign workers to be on the front line of their operations.
“The foreign workers should be doing the hard, physical labour instead of being the salesperson or managing the stalls. The owners should be managing the stalls and doing the trading.
“However, the same cannot be applied to restaurants as it needs the manpower for their front lines,” he said.
While the government is keen on having more locals working in these service industry, Mhd Amin said it has to maintain a realistic perspective over the whole issue.
“We don’t want to make the lives of business operators difficult. It’s not easy to simply change your workforce from foreign workers to locals. But we want to see if it can be done.
“If it cannot be done after our study in the next three to six months’ time and we have spoken to all stakeholders, we will submit a report to the minister,” he said, referring to Federal Territories minister Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Mansor.
Earlier this week, food and beverage conglomerate The BIG Group’s chief executive Benjamin Yong had posted on Facebook asking if anyone was aware of the new development.
