Malaysian Employers Federation (MEF) Executive Director Shamsuddin Bardan said investors normally consider the work ethics of the people in a country before pumping in money.

“Defending the rights of workers to sleep at work may have just discouraged investors,” he told FMT.

Shamsuddin said this in response to Nufam’s reprimanding of outgoing Malaysia Airlines Chief Executive Officer Christoph Mueller after the latter – in an interview with German broadcaster Deutsche Welle – said he had to slash 6,000 jobs at the airline as many were doing nothing, with some even sleeping in the hangars.

Shamsuddin went on to reiterate that sleeping during working hours was hardly the “Malaysian way”, despite what Nufam alleged, adding that employers do not encourage their workers to sleep while on duty.

“Disciplinary action can be taken against the staff. This is a major misconduct and can lead to dismissal.”

Malaysians generally work eight hours and are given a one-hour break.

Shamsuddin also compared Malaysian work habits to those in developed countries, stating staff in developed nations were more diligent at work.

“If they are supposed to finish a job in two hours, they would.

“But it is not the same here. They would try to delay it to claim overtime.”

He said this incurred costs to employers as staff were known to delay their work.

Shamsuddin added Malaysian employers had no choice but to hire more people than needed as the country was still nowhere close to using high-technology products.

“If we want to employ less labour, we need to embrace technology, which we’re still not doing.”

In the past, employers have said that it was cheaper for them to hire foreign workers from less developed countries like Bangladesh and Indonesia.

At present, there are more than two million registered foreign workers and about the same number of illegal workers.