In a Harian Metro report, Malaysian Indian Restaurant Owners Association (Primas) and Malaysian Muslim Restaurant Operators Association (Presma) said they had sent letters to the home ministry and other agencies involved in foreign worker recruitment requesting them to consider allowing restaurants to bring in foreign workers.

Presma president Jawahar Ali Taib Khan said the restaurant sector currently employed fewer than 50,000 foreign workers – which he said was around 18% of the total number of foreign workers in Malaysia.

“It is time for the government to think about how to make this industry bigger because Malaysia is a food paradise,” he said at a press conference in Kuala Lumpur.

“All kinds of food can be found under one roof at reasonable prices, so we appeal to the home ministry and relevant agencies to consider this request.

“Previously, there was a foreign worker replacement system, where, for example, if one worker returned to their home country, a replacement would come in.

“This system was very helpful to us before it was stopped.”

He also hoped the government would raise the age limit to hire foreign workers from 45 years old to 55 years old as another measure to address the shortage.

Last November, home minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail said the freeze on applications to hire foreign workers would be maintained until at least the first quarter of 2025.

This was the third such extension after the policy was initially announced in March 2023.