Long working hours in Malaysia

In the society of Malaysia, a six day work week is become common for each person. A six day work week is mean the employee need to work from 9.00 a.m. to 6.00 p.m. on every Monday to Friday while on Saturday the employee need to work for 5 hours. So, the total of working hours in one week will be 45 hours. For this situation, most of the employee in Malaysia only have one day rest which is Sunday to relax their mind. In 2017, Malaysia in the fourth place in the average annual labor hours per worker with a total 2,238.27 working hours. 

If the situation of long working hours is still continue after 10 years or above will might be cause the low production efficiency. This is because the employees don't have enough time to rest. Everyday when they back home after they get off from their job, they having their dinner, bathing, do some prepare for tomorrow, probably playing phone for a while and then they heading to the bed and sleep. After they wake up they will do the same thing as yesterday. Beside, the divorce rate might be increasing also. This is due to the reason that when the working hours is become longer, the lesser the time they spend with their family. For example, when their family want to go travel, but they have to say no to them since they are busy on their work or when they get off from their work all they want is to have their own privacy time so, there will be less emotion contact will their family. Hence, the bonding of family is become weaker. On top of that, the aging population will increase. This is because some of the people think that raising a child will be stressful since they feel stress and busy on their work. Based on the bar chart below the population of older than 65 years in 2014 is only 5.6% but in 2020 the population of older have become 7.9% , so if the ageing is keep growing the older population will be more than 15% in the future years. If the younger become less in a county, then the country will hardly to develop.

Based on what will happen if long working hours still continue, the government of Malaysia need to think some solution to avoid those thing might be happen in the future. To solute this problem, there will be three creative solutions. First, the government should give the fixed two day weekend off for every job since most of the job in Malaysia doesn't have two day weekend off. This is because the employee will be have more time to rest and relax their mind, so the efficiency of production will become higher. Second, the leader of the team can also give some award such as they can get off early if they done the job in the limited time. Hence, the employees will be very motivated thereby the efficiency of production will be higher in company at the same time the employees also can heading back home early. As a saying goes, kill two birds with one stone. Third, the leader of team can assign employees to the positions they are good at or interested in. This is in light of the fact that most people will be more motivated when they do the things they like same thing as the employees, employees will be more motivated on their job and done their job perfectly and quickly, so the working hours for employees will become shorter.

The reason why I write this title is because my father rarely back home since I was still a child. He back home twice in a week. He also six day work week, this had cause the relationship between me and him grow apart. The inspiration to come out this creative solution is I will do some research on other country working environment especially the counties from Europe since those countries promote the work-life balance. I hope that the our country working hours will become shorter, so that everyone will have their own time.

References

(2023, March 2). Malaysia 45 working hours: Shift or non shift employees. E Stream MSC.  https://www.sql.com.my/reduced-maximum-working-hours/#:~:text=This%20may%20include%20extending%20the,exceed%2045%20hours%20per%20week.                                 

 (2022, December 15). Malaysia: Aging population 2022. Statista.  https://www.statista.com/statistics/713529/malaysia-aging-population/