Posted on 05/26/2022 6:04:27 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Would you wash dishes for $3,500 a month?
It is a pretty high salary for a blue-collar job but despite this very attractive offer, some F&B operators in Singapore are still struggling to find willing candidates to take up this position.
Over at Ishinomaki Grill & Sake located in Orchard Road, co-owner Chen Weixin told Shin Min Daily News that due to a shortage of people willing to do this job, she had to roll up her sleeves and wash the dishes.
No other staff member she approached wanted to take on the additional duty either, even for an extra $50 a day.
"Maybe many people view dishwashing as a lowly position and are unwilling to do it even when there's money to be made," Chen told Shin Min Daily News.
Chen, a shareholder of the restaurant, shared that only when they put up the offer of $3,500 a month — equivalent to the starting salaries for some fresh university graduates — did they manage to find a Malaysian worker.
And that is after a month-long search. No Singaporean wanted to take up their offer.
The 50-year-old said they used to rely on foreign workers for this position but the pandemic had resulted in many of them returning to their home countries.
There's also a labour crunch with the easing of Covid-19 rules since March 29 and the tightening of foreign labour policies here.
Few Singaporeans want to do this Shin Min Daily News also reported that some F&B businesses have resorted to offering salaries of up to $4,000 a month for dishwashers and $3,000 in bonuses to attract staff.
One F&B operator told Shin Min Daily News that they are offering a base salary of $2,600 with a hiring bonus of $2,000.
"We also provide a performance bonus of up to $1,000 a month, but even then we're still facing a shortage of staff," said the owner.
Lambert Chen, co-owner of Iko Restaurant and Bar along Neil Road told AsiaOne that the job is both demanding and hard work, which is why "few Singaporeans wish to take on this role".
Tung Lok Restaurants' chief executive officer Andrew Tjoe said they hired a cleaning company 10 years ago to address this issue, paying them between $3,800 to $4,000 per worker, reported Shin Min Daily News
He reasoned that as the labour supply for cleaning staff is very fluid, "by paying a cleaning company, it saves us the worry of whether the dishwasher will be here today and gone tomorrow."
Tjoe also shared that with the lifting of Covid-19 dining restrictions, they still need to hire more dishwashers today.
Lambert shared that for them, using cleaning companies is not an option due to the high cost.
"The rotation of dishwashers is also frequent, hence standards might not be maintained," he explained, revealing that his restaurant currently employs one dishwasher, a foreign worker, for $2,700 a month.
Some cleaning companies here have hiked up their prices to close to 30 per cent.
Chen said she was quoted $4,900 for a cleaner by a cleaning company here "which is equivalent to a manager's salary", she shared.
The company had also insisted she hire three workers due to the size of her restaurant.
"This would mean spending close to $15,000 a month on dishwashing alone," she calculated.
This challenge in hiring dishwashers is not new in the F&B industry here where back in 2012, Sakae Sushi said they were facing difficulties hiring dishwashers even with their $3,000 offer.
Last month, one Malaysian restaurant in Melbourne, Australia was offering $5,500 a month for a chef to flip roti canai (known locally as roti prata).
That comes out $15.00 (US) per hour, which is totally yesterday in Biden’s economy.
And the COL there is how much per month?
In Singapore? Hell of a lot more than S$3,500/month, unless you are ok with living in an un-airconditioned shoebox.
Use paper plates.
Even with a modern commercial dishwashing rig, it’s still a pretty nasty and unpleasant job. You have to clean up all the nasty mess people leave on the plate by hand before you can put it in the dishwasher. You have to regularly clean out all the soaked mushy food gunk that gets clogged in the dishwasher’s filters by hand. You’re going to be soaked the whole time and you are going to go home smelling disgusting.
I still was happy to do it for $4 an hour, but that was when I was in high school and any spending money at all was a godsend. Don’t think I would take that job again even if I was desperate for money.
You misspelled playpa prates. Hope this helps!
And 3500 per month is NOT high for a blue collar job. It might seem high for a dishwasher, but that's $42,000 per year. Plenty of blue collar jobs pay $100K per year or more.
I also had that job when I was in high school. I have fond memories. Yes, the job could be disgusting at times but I got to crank the radio loud, the chefs made me all the food I could eat and bartenders would slip me paper cups full of beer as I would bring them clean glasses and take away the dirty ones.
I never had to clean food gunk from dishwasher, although I probably cleaned off food gunk before loading. I became a dishwasher, because I wasn’t drinking age yet. Couldn’t waitress.
Isn’t that an entry job, around $15 an hour?
Washed dishes at a Ramada Inn restaurant for about 2.50/hour back in 1975. Had the best boss I ever worked for; made me feel like the most important employee he had.
What about having 190 degree water flecking onto your bare arms while you were scraping the plates clean?
See, the difference is I worked at an Austrian restaurant and the old lady that ran it was a ballbuster. No music. No smoking. Only 30 minutes break the whole shift and you only got a bowl of soup and a piece of bread, or a crepe if you worked an 8 hour shift. Could drink all the coffee you wanted though, and I also made the ice cream, so I could “accidentally” make too much milkshake and then I got to finish that off.
Great, I forgot about that, thanks for reminding me :)
I did quite a few dish washing jobs in my youth. It’s real busy work that makes the time literally fly by.
Never forget where you came from🙃
Singapore is easily as expensive as DC or the Bay Area. It’s uniquely expensive for Southeast Asia.
As a youth I bussed tables and washed dishes for a lot less than $15 an hour and I have to admit I liked it, I was contributing, I was earning my own money and others on the waitstaff began to think of me as responsible and reliable. It what was an entry level job was supposed to teach a young man.
In Singapore that would not even buy one BoJo, let alone rent and food for a month.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.