KUALA LUMPUR: It looks like the Human Resource Ministry has now backtracked on its directive on the “locals only cooks” announced by its minister yesterday.
After coming under fire from various quarters, its minister M. Kulasegaran today said that the ban on foreign cooks was only a proposal.
He said the ministry would hold further discussion with stakeholders before finalising anything.
“The call for restaurants to hire local cooks was just a suggestion and a date was given as there needs to be a cut off period,” he said.
On Friday, Kulasegaran was quoted as saying that all restaurants serving Malaysian food would be required to recruit only locals as cooks from Jan 1.
He was reported to have said that the policy was needed to reduce the number of foreign workers in the country.
The number of foreign workers in the country has seen an increase from 1.06 million in 2002 to 1.8 million in 2017.
Of these, about 250,000 work in the service sector including in restaurants.
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