late 90s nobody was working those jobs.
Many of those jobs were not desirable. More so in many colonies in Africa and Asia where whites didn't want to do the jobs that mattered in terms of economic development or administrative goals and just threw Indians and Chinese at them to do it because they expected those two groups to have more allegiance to the crown versus the locals.
Which turned out to be false since you had Indians just controlling the majority of the economy in British Eastern Africa while having Chinese do the same in many parts of SEA while Anglos were just speculating on real estate. You know it's pretty bad when Arthur Kemp has said "It is said, in fact, that the definition of a white South African is “someone who would rather be murdered in their bed than make it.”, and this is something pretty huge for a guy like him to say considering his background in Southern African politics back in the day.