THE government is on track to achieve its target of creating 500,000 jobs, after 376,000 job seekers managed to find employment under the government’s 27 initiatives, Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob said today.

“The success of finding job placements exceeded the government’s target for the first nine months of this year, with 354,276 job vacancies filled up to September 30, 2021,” he said in a statement after the National Employment Council’s (NEC) meeting yesterday.

“This shows the government is about to achieve its target of achieving 500,000 job opportunities this year,” he added.

The initiative was announced by former prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin last year as the country grappled with the economic challenges as a result of the Covid-19 outbreak.

Ismail said the government has created 97,000 job opportunities through domestic investments, whereby 76% were in the skilled and semi-skilled category.

He said the number was part of the target to create 160,000 new jobs from the government’s investment commitments for 2021.

Putrajaya will also implement the National Job Creation Strategic Plan (NJCSP) to strengthen the Malaysian labour force to become highly skilled, resilient and renown on the global stage.

The implementation will be supported by the five specialised task force under the NEC.

The plan will be based on six thrusts.

This includes stepping up cooperation between industries and education sector, developing talents to fulfil industry needs, empower local entrepreneurs to progress in the current economic condition, making full use of the gig economy to generate income opportunities, growing new and modern sectors and implementing modern work culture.

Ismail said the six thrusts will be the guidelines for the implementation for game changers, including artificial intelligence, which will be key for job matching and planning and increasing Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) graduates’ marketability and quality.

The NJCSP will also create a special platform to coordinate information pertaining to all TVET institutes, programmes and opportunities to ease job hunting.

“The Finance Ministry and the Human Resources Ministry have also been given the responsibility to develop a one-stop digital platform to ensure that training and skills development programmes carried out by several ministries and agencies can be implemented and monitored effectively and with structure,” he said.

He said the courses offered will be based on the current economic needs, demographics and local economy.

The government has also made the Employment Insurance Scheme via the Social Security Organisation for those who lost their jobs.

Ismail added that those who are still seeking employment opportunities can look up the MyFutureJobs portal.

The government is confident that the NEC’s strategy including the NJCSP can continue the economic recovery momentum, create more jobs, and overcome issues such as manpower crunch in certain sectors, fair opportunities and wage issues.    

Chaired by the prime minister, NEC comprises 12 ministers, the chief secretary to the government and 12 representatives from the private sector. – September 23, 2021.