LACK OF RESOURCES
Mr Jeremy Ng, managing director of Sea Wheel Travel, told CNA: “We sold a lot of old vehicles during the pandemic and then now when we want to expand our fleet, we are not able to do so due to the high cost.
“(Even) if we can afford it, we may not have a driver to drive the new vehicles.”
When the COVID-19 pandemic first hit in early 2020, many of the company’s drivers took up jobs driving public buses or private vehicles, or even switched to other sectors such as information technology (IT), and never came back, said Mr Ng.
“We are still struggling to get experienced people. A lot of my peers actually employ new people and then we have to train them from scratch,” he said.
Mr Mahesh Pawanaskar, director of Nam Ho DMC, which caters to tourists from India, told CNA that locals are not keen on driving jobs due to the long hours.