THERE are lots of jobs to be had even in a Covid-hit economy, said employers. In fact, there is more work  available than there are workers, they said.

Malaysian Employers Federation (MEF) executive director Shamsuddin Bardan said there were 739,743 vacancies compared to  413,695 job seekers in 2020.

This year between January 1 and March 26 , there were 468,102 positions advertised on MYFutureJobs compared to 183,797 people looking for jobs.

“We hope that it will become a centre for job matching that will reflect the (market) conditions as far as job vacancies and applications are concerned,” he told The Malaysian Insight, referring to the national job portal.

He said it wouldn’t hurt to have more awareness of the portal either.

MYFutureJobs is a government initiative run by the Human Resources Ministry to aid recruitment.

Shamsuddin said there were 122,629 basic job openings and 64,484 professional job listings on the portal at this time.

Other listings are for managerial positions (16,235), technicians and associate professionals (48,035), clerical support (22,446), sales and service (72,212), skilled agricultural, forestry, livestock and fishery workers (1,701), craft and related trades workers (30,200) and plant and machine operators and assemblers (35,753).

The positions are spread across the various sectors including manufacturing, services and construction.

And these were only the jobs that had been posted on the portal, said Shamsuddin. There were many more such advertisement on other portals and media.

Shamsuddin said the government has engaged the MEF for input on policy-making.

“The creation of new jobs in the private sector is critical as traditionally the private sector provides about 90% of the job opportunities.

“Some job seekers have the perception that wages are low but such are the market conditions now.

“Also some employers may not be able to offer long term or permanent employment and opt for a shorter contract instead.”

He advised newbies to take the jobs that were available to gain experience.

“I think what is important for job seekers, especially fresh graduates, is that they should take (the jobs they can get) to gain experience, which will it make them more employable in the future,” he said.

The government aims to create 500,000 jobs through the National Employment Council (NEC) amid an enervated economy still recovering from the coronavirus crisis.

The JanaKerja scheme is expected to create 250,000 jobs, while the reskilling and upskilling programmes will have 200,000 openings. The MyStep scheme will add 50,000 more.

Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin chairs the NEC made up of ministers, corporate figures and experts.

MEF president Dr Syed Hussain Syed Husman and Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers president Soh Thian Lai are on the council.

Soh told The Malaysian Insight there were 100,000 positions vacant in the manufacturing and manufacturing services sectors.

He said FMM had pledged to help the NEC address unemployment issues through many initiatives introduced under Budget 2021.

These include upskilling and reskilling programmes for workers and digitalisation initiatives. FMM members have also committed to provide more employment opportunities for locals in 2021.

“FMM has been working with the International Trade and Industry Ministry to capture the data on new job creation in 2021 and to provide the necessary assistance to these companies via MyFutureJobs in collaboration with Socso to fill those vacancies with local employees towards achieving the target of creating 500,000 jobs in 2021,” Soh said.

FMM is also working with Socso to create greater awareness of the Penjana Kerjaya 2.0 initiatives and encouraging its members to recruit via MyFutureJobs, he said.

Socso is organising Karnival Kerjaya MyFutureJobs for FMM members on April 7 and more virtual job fairs are being planned for the coming months.

The trade body has also collaborated with the Human Resources Development Fund (HRDF) for various upskilling and reskilling training programmes under Penjana HRDF.

This is to support the changing manufacturing landscape and to ride on digital transformation which has now been fast tracked due to the Covid-19 pandemic, he added.

Citing the FMM-MIER Business Conditions Survey 2H2020 released on March 2, Soh said the operations category was likely to see most recruitment, followed by the technical and sales and marketing sections.

Malaysia’s unemployment rate is 4.9% in January, compared to 4.8% in December as the number of jobless people rose to 782,500 from 772,900.

Last year the country reported the highest unemployment rate in 27 years, at 4.5%. – April 5, 2021.