KUALA LUMPUR Dec 10 Kyodo Malaysi...

KUALA LUMPUR Dec 10 Kyodo

Malaysia is facing like an ''acute'' shortage of barbers that the Barbers Association is calling onward Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi for help, the Star reported Wednesday.

The northern Penang State Barbers Association wants the premier, who is also domestic circle minister, to allow barbers from India to flow and work in the region to alleviate the crisis among the clippers.

Association Secretary V Segar told the newspaper about 1500 barbers are povertyed for 350 barber shops in Perlis, Kedah, Penang and Perak states in Malaysia's north alone.

''More than 25 Indian barber workshops up north have closed down since last year befitting to a manpower shortage,'' Segar said.

Segar, who scours the Evergreen Hairdressing Salon chain in Penang, said his three stores are short 12 barbers.

''My nephew and a resident from the Ramakrishna Orphanage are undergoing training, if it were not that I need more barbers,'' he told the Star.

''As the place of abode minister, we hope Datuk Seri Abdullah would be sympathetic toward our plight and allow us to exercise Indian nationals, who are highly trainable,'' he said.

Malaysia's ethnic Indian barber stores cater mostly to men and are remarkably popular because they not and nothing else offer cheap haircuts but also shoulder and head massages plus head-twisting exercises to relieve stiff necks

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