.jpg)
Labour Problems Might Just Shut Down Your Favourite Neighbourhood Mamak Restaurant
By Mihar Dias
(C) Copyright February 2022
Did you notice that service is slower these days at your local mamak restaurant?
After the pandemic, many mamak restaurants seemed to have fewer attentive waiters than previously.
I was at a well known mamak restaurant in Taman Tun that served excellent roti canai, last week. We saw only two waiters where once there were three times that number.
If in the past an attentive waiter was always close by your table but on that occasion, we had to wave frantically many times before one could walk over to attend to us. Grudgingly he said, “Sorry boss, very busy two of us only now!”
The restaurant was 75% full. We could see they were overstretched. So, fewer workers mean slower service.
The mamak restaurant industry is short of about 30,000 workers to fill vacancies throughout the country. The President of the Malaysian Muslim Restaurant Owners Association (PRESMA) told Berita Harian that the labour problem was becoming very critical for its members.
The shortage had forced 2,000 out of its 12,000 members to close down operations over the last two years. That is almost 20% of its membership. A staggering number in just two years. The recent pandemic may perhaps be part of the cause for the shortage.
We believe many more would follow suit if the shortage persists.
Although not mentioned in the report, the industry throughout history had traditionally relied solely on the Indian subcontinent for its supply of labour.
Most were originally from Tamilnadu a province in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent and lately, some were recruited from neighbouring Islamic countries of Bangladesh and Pakistan.
Without these workers, mamak restaurants might be crippled because locals do not find the industry appealing enough to them.
The PRESMA president said they did offer opportunities to locals but there was “no response from Malaysians”.
From experience, we know that local youths prefer to work in franchised food restaurants where working conditions are better and remuneration higher than those offered by mamak restaurants.
The pandemic had made it difficult to import workers from these countries. Many in our neighbourhood too have closed or cut down on table service because they were short-handed. Even an upmarket cafe at Bukit Damansara could not cope when they could not replace workers who left for home in the last two years.
Your mamak shop next door might be closing down soon unless the Home Affairs Ministry gave the green light for more to be imported. The PRESMA president did not say that he was raising the issue of manpower shortage as lobbying for approval to import more workers.
But by saying that there was a shortage of 30,000 and reluctance of locals to work in mamak restaurants it is understood that he was indirectly appealing to the authorities to consider approvals for application to import more workers from the Indian subcontinent.
But even if they were to open the borders as soon as March, as recommended, it would be a long time before recruits would reach local restaurants.
Until then I hope your local mamak shop could sustain itself long enough until reinforcement arrives from the subcontinent.
Meanwhile, just be patient.
Mihar Dias is a content writer under Headliner by Newswav, a programme where content creators get to tell their unique stories through articles and at the same time monetize their content within the Newswav app.
Register at headliner.newswav.com to become one of our content writers now!
Newswav is solely an aggregation platform and hosts the content. The views expressed and content above including media (pictures, videos, etc) were provided by the author. If you have any questions about the content, copyright or other issues of the work, please contact Newswav.
