JobsDB Moments

Reluctant Job Seekers?

If there is one cabinet ministry that is working very hard at the moment, it had to be the human resources ministry. It has been steadily making announcements on jobs availability and assuring

Still, are the job seekers listening? Some of the recent announcements were not really reassuring as they indicated that job seekers are still pretty reluctant when it comes to grabbing the opportunity that comes.

Take this report from The Star for instance. Titled “Retrenched workers too choosy, says minister”, the reported noted that only 1,000 of the 18,000 workers who lost their jobs in recent months have signed up in the last month-and-a-half for the "Train and Place" programme set up by the government.

It even said that the human Resources Minister Datuk Dr S. Subramaniam was at a loss for words to explain this.

"They are a choosy lot, unwilling to change their mindset. They have to have an open mind," he said.

It also added that through the ministry, the government has spent hundreds of millions of ringgit to set up 80 training centres to teach retrenched workers new skills and help them find jobs.

“During the training, usually for four to five months, they receive an allowance of RM500 to RM800 a month depending on their marital status. Upon completion of their training, the Labour Department will help them find a job,” the report said.

Meanwhile, the minister also have been urging the Indian youths to take advantage of the government sponsored skills training courses to get themselves better qualified.

In a news report, Subramaniam noted that last year, only 280 Indian youths attended the courses, available at Industrial Training Institutes nationwide, when there were places for 900 Indian youths.

He said many employers were reluctant to offer jobs to Indian youths as they did not have the necessary qualifications.

It is indeed puzzling, to quote the minister, as recently it announced that there are a total of 209,675 job opportunities that can be filled by locals this year

This includes vacancies in the manufacturing, services, plantation, farming and construction sectors. The reluctance could be due to the fact that these sectors are not glamourous, but glam is not an option at times like this.

Then again, these very sectors were responsible for earlier retrenchment cases. Dr. Subramaniam told the media that from Oct 1 2008 till April this year, a total of 17,436 Malaysian workers faced retrenchment while 7,418 others took up VSS (voluntary separation schemes).

"The majority of those retrenched were from the electrical and electronic sub-sectors, textile and clothing manufacturing and the services sector," he was quoted as saying.

In addition to the above number, the Selangor State number recently announced that it may need around 150,000 workers when it carries out five mega projects under the state level RM50 billion stimulus package.

This will involve various skillsets and those retrenched could benefit from the ministry’s training centres to acquire additional talents. Unfortunately, when the economy recovers, we will still have old labour force with outdated skills and less qualification to deal with.

As a consequence, companies would be forced to take in foreign workers who come with the required skill and are available at lower cost. This could mean big trouble for Malaysian job seekers. Only time will tell.

(Source: Jobsdb Malaysia)