PARTI Sosialis Malaysia Negeri Melaka (PSM Melaka) is suggesting the federal government to help the country’s tourism sector by reducing the working and schooling days to four days per week, encouraging locals to take domestic holidays with their families and reviving domestic tourism.
According to PSM Melaka state secretary Sharan Raj, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) predicts that international travel could take until 2024 before it recovers to a pre-pandemic level.
Therefore, a majority of tourism workers, from trishaw drivers in Melaka to budget hotel workers in Sandakan, will be facing serious economic misery from the lack of tourists supporting their businesses.
“Since the federal government employs about 1.71 million government staffs and about 300,000 other people through its government-linked companies (GLCs), representing nearly 13% of the national workforce, increasing the weekends to three days a week will allow the staffs to take longer domestic holidays with their families,” Sharan said in a Sept 19 note.
“Implementing four working days per week is not so complicated (considering the) government’s aggressive push for digitalisation is reducing the overall workload,” he added.
Sharan also pointed out that with the bulk of government and GLC employees working in Selangor-Kuala Lumpur-Putrajaya areas originate from small town and rural areas within the country (east coast, northern region and east Malaysia), the longer weekends will encourage them to travel back to their respective hometowns more frequently and spend more time with their relatives, in turn boosting its economies. – Sept 21, 2020
