Ameer Ali Mydin, managing director of Mydin hypermarkets, said that it was illogical to have only 20 interview slots per week, considering the size of the services industry in the country.
Ameer was referring to the ministry’s latest notice on Sept 8 announcing the services of the one-stop centre at its migrant workers management division. The notice had a timetable for walk-in slots for employers to be interviewed for foreign worker quota applications, beginning Sept 12.
The schedule was for those from sectors such as services, construction, plantation, and mining.
The services sector, which included the restaurant, retail, wholesale, cleaning and laundry subsectors, were allocated only 20 interview slots each Wednesday.
Even if only 10,000 employers from the services sector applied for interview slots, with the current schedule, this would take 10 years for all employers to be interviewed, said Ameer.
“There is a great demand for workers in the industry and the government should supply the labour that is needed,” said Ameer.
Malaysian Indian Restaurant Owners Association (Primas) deputy president RC Krishnan said while the association understood that there was an overwhelming number of applications, 20 slots per week were inadequate for the services industry.
“Considering the demand for workers in the current situation, the number of interview slots should be increased,” said Krishnan, adding that having 30 slots daily was a more feasible option.
“There can be 15 slots in the morning and another 15 in the afternoon,” he said.
Ameer suggested the ministry give automatic approval to employers who have already been hiring foreign workers in the past few years, with quotas based on the ministry’s criteria and provided the employers are not currently blacklisted.
“This would cover about 70% of current employers in the services industry, “ he said, adding that those with new businesses would still have to go through the interview process.
Employers have formerly expressed unhappiness at the interview process for quota applications for foreign workers. In August, it was reported that many employers were turned away from the human resources ministry as interviews could not be carried out because of the sheer number of applicants.