Shortage of confinement ladies this dragon year

Compiled by JUNAID IBRAHIM, BEH YUEN HUI and R. ARAVINTHAN

CONFINEMENT ladies are in high demand in Singapore as many couples are planning to have a “dragon baby” this year, Sin Chew Daily reported.

These ladies charge between S$2,600 and S$4,500 (RM9,000 and RM15,700) per month. The experienced ones can even earn up to S$9,000 (RM31,400) during the Chinese New Year period.

“Many Chinese love to have babies in the Year of the Dragon, so good confinement ladies are already fully booked until July,” the Malaysia Nanny Confinement Association was quoted as saying in Singapore’s Shin Min Daily News.

According to the association, there is a shortage in the local market as many Malaysians had gone to the republic to work due to the high currency rate.

Furthermore, an agent in Singapore pointed out that many nannies there had retired or switched jobs during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Those who remained as confinement ladies say they prefer the day shift, which allows them to go home around 6pm.

“But the Malaysians can work round the clock. This is why the locals like them,” he said.

Going by the Chinese zodiac, 2024 is the Year of the Dragon.

> Nanyang Siang Pau reported that a woman in China’s Chongqing city had demanded an apology from a supermarket worker who had reprimanded her for allowing her pet dog to urinate on the goods there.

When asked to purchase the damaged products, the woman shouted: “Can, but you must first apologise to my dog.”

She paid for the items following an intervention by the police.

The incident happened on Jan 9 when the woman had earlier ignored the “no pets allowed” sign at the entrance of the grocery store and went in with her two dogs.

While inside the supermarket, she let her dogs roam about, and one was caught urinating.

The above articles are compiled from the vernacular newspapers (Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese and Tamil dailies). As such, stories are grouped according to the respective language/medium. Where a paragraph begins with a, it denotes a separate news item.