WORKERS shortage has led some of the business operators, including “mamak” restaurant owners to put their plans to operate 24-hours on hold.
The government has announced that businesses such as restaurants and convenience stores are allowed to resume operations for 24 hours, in tandem with the reopening of borders beginning last Friday, as the country is moving into the endemic phase.
Ali Bistro Restaurant director Ashraf Ariff said the country’s transition into an endemic is good news, but nothing will change for his premise as due to workers shortage.
“Unfortunately, as much as we want to go back to our normal operation, we are in deep shortage of workers which stops us from extending the operation to 24 hours,” he said.
“It is impossible for us to open 24 hours anytime soon given the lack of workers, and we barely found any workers to maintain operation as of now,” Ashraf told The Malaysian Reserve (TMR).
“Alternatively, we are also hiring and depend on local workers, however, due to many reasons, most locals are less keen to work at mamak and getting foreign workers in is impossible right now,” he added.
“We are also not getting approval from the Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Ministry either to recruit foreign workers,” he said during a phone interview.
According to him, opening 24 hours also may cause internal problems, as it will overburden the existing staff which also can negatively affect the customer service and food quality.
“Instead of taking that risk, for now, we will still stick to operate until 10pm only until we can resolve the labour issue,” Ashraf said.
Similarly, branch manager of Cuba Rasa Ramlee Bistro Al Alim said most mamak restaurant operators are facing labour shortage.
To ensure it will remain open around the clock, the owners had to work at their own restaurants to keep the operation in order.
“Cuba Rasa right now has eight branches in total, five at Batu Pahat, Johor, one each in Semenyih and Jalan Klang Lama, and one in Kuala Lumpur (KL),” he said.
“However, for now, not all branches are open. The Johor branch also does not open for up to 24 hours, but here in KL, once we moved from operation until 12am, we will open for 24 hours despite the labour shortage.”
“Roughly, we need 20 workers for each branch because they need to rotate and shift. However, now despite applying at many platforms such as Jobstreet, we barely found anyone who is interested,” he said while managing his family restaurant chain in the KL branch.
“Locals are less interested to work at mamak, therefore, we will have to wait until we can bring in foreign workers,” he added.
According to him, the Malaysian Muslim Restaurants Owner Association president has also allowed them to look for replacement workers.
“Some can be recruited using a permit but that will take a long process and still pending, once we obtained that, then we can proceed most branches with 24 hours operation,” he said.
Meanwhile, a foodpanda rider Shah Zulkarnain when interviewed, said there are no changes in terms of hours and their operation still very much follows the stipulated time according to the app and orders.
“There is no change in timing and regulations as we move into endemic. We still follow the time which foodpanda provides as usual, if it says after 12am then we will deliver after 12am. There is no issue,” he said.
Although he just recently joined as a rider two months ago, he believes the endemic phase will give riders more opportunity to subsequently increase their earnings.
For Grab Malaysia, based on its app, the operating hours for GrabFood and GrabMart remain until 11.59pm, with last orders by 11.30pm.
However, it has extended the service for its GrabCar services for 24 hours.
For GrabExpress, its service will be until 11.59pm but there will be no last booking time.
On the other hand, 7-Eleven (7E) is resuming its service for 24 hours.
“Before this, our operation hours were from 6am until 12am,” 7E M3 Mall branch manager Suaidah Aqilah told TMR.
Despite that, she added, some 7E branches which are staple in some neighbouring areas have begun to operate 24 hours since a month ago.
“Similarly, some 7E cafes have also begun to operate for 24 hours since two weeks ago,” she said.
“Overall, we are looking forward to extending the operation hours, however, it is a bit hard to find the workers who are willing to attend the night shifts since most of them have been used to normal working hours for two years,” she added.
Source: https://themalaysianreserve.com/2022/04/04/workers-shortage-a-bane-for-24-hour-biz-operations/