COFFEE shops and restaurants in Johor are facing an acute manpower shortage as many workers are opting to commute to Singapore for better pay.

The weak ringgit is the root cause of the exodus. Restaurant workers are attracted to the strong Singapore dollar and are willing to make the long daily commute.

The exchange rate as of August 31 is RM3.44 to a Singapore dollar.

Johor Baru Coffee, Restaurant and Bar Merchants Association deputy president Ong Wa Kong told The Malaysian Insight youth seeking better quality of life are heading across the Causeway.

“Those who stay in Johor are those who do not have high expectations for life. To them, a salary of RM2,000 or RM3,000 is good enough,” Yong said.

Yong said the majority who have found work in Singapore are highly experienced, such as senior waiters.

He said Malaysians have been looking for jobs in Singapore for many decades, but the number has increased in recent years, with an evident spike when the ringgit lost much ground to the Singapore dollar.

Yong denied the food and beverage industry is doing nothing to stem the exodus.

“There are employers who have raised salaries. If the worker is good, the employer will definitely be afraid of losing him and will increase his salary appropriately,” he said.

He said Johor restaurateurs have been forced to hire foreign workers, who are not cheap.

“Their starting salary is RM2,000,” he said, adding that some owners have turned to automation and other new technologies, like automatic tea-making.

But these expensive machines might not be affordable for the traditional mom-and-pop outlets like “kopitiams”.

“To afford those machines, the kopitiams need high volume of business.”

Johor Kitchen Association president Ang Swee Kiong said many restaurateurs have had to raise wages to keep their best workers.

“What our chefs earn now could be considered lucrative. And they have not jumped on the bandwagon to Singapore.

“Those who have done so are generally assistant chefs.”

But Ang said all is not lost.

He said while many have opted to look for “gold” in Singapore in recent years, a handful of workers are coming home.

He said these are people who think they have made enough money and want to go home.

“Because they have been away for over a decade, working day and night far from their families, they now want a stable life and time to spend with their families.”

Johor Baru Coffee, Restaurant and Bar Merchants Association president Wong Liang Fatt said tech-savvy young kopitiam owners are installing drink-making machines to address the manpower problem.

“The elderly owners don’t want to change and are making the drinks like their forefathers did,” said Wong. – August 31, 2023.