Ministry: No blanket policy on prioritising local cooks

THERE will be no blanket policy on prioritising local cooks over foreigners even as a new strategy is worked out on the hiring of foreign workers, said the Human Resources Ministry.

“I have suggested focusing on giving locals the jobs but the restaurant operators objected, saying the policy shift does not give them time to overcome the lack of workers.

“We want a win-win situation, so there will be no blanket policy on this matter.

“We will give all restaurants a chance to bring in foreign guest cooks,” said minister M. Kulasegaran in reply to Datuk Danyal Balagopal Abdullah (PH-Port Dickson).

On June 22, Kulasegaran had said all restaurants serving Malaysian food could only recruit locals as cooks from Jan 1 next year.

Following criticism, he clarified that the requirement only applied to ordinary local food outlets and not foreign cuisine restaurants, highend eateries and five-star hotels, which needed specialised cooks.

The Cabinet, added Kulasegaran, had recently set up a committee between his ministry and the Home Ministry to work on a new policy on the hiring of foreign workers.

“Among the things we will study are the existing haphazard poli- cies,” he said, adding that the new policy was necessary to curb Malaysia’s overdependence on foreign workers.

To another question by Datuk Seri Abdul Azeez Rahim (BN-Baling), Kulasegaran said the National Wage Legislative Technical Committee had made proposals on the minimum wage.

“I will bring it up to the Cabinet for a final decision,” he said.