PUTRAJAYA – Strategic cooperation with various government ministries and agencies has reduced the country’s unemployment rate from 599,600 in the fourth quarter of 2022 to 588,700 people in the first quarter of this year, said Human Resources Minister V. Sivakumar.
He said the interstate unemployment rate also reduced in tandem with the decline in the national one, with Putrajaya recording the lowest rate of 0.8%, followed by Perlis with 2.1%, Penang with 2.3%, and Negri Sembilan with 2.5%.
He said some of the initiatives implemented by his ministry through the Social Security Organisation (Socso), TalentCorp, Human Resource Development Corp, and Skills Development Department included providing the job portal MYFutureJobs, which is a virtual platform to match jobs based on qualifications, skills, wages, and employers’ needs.
“A total of 793,086 jobseekers have been employed as of April,” he said in a statement today.
In a bid to boost job offers by employers, Sivakumar said Socso implemented interview sessions at all its state offices on a daily and weekly basis as well as large-scale employment carnivals.
For this year, he said a total of 4,130 programmes are targeted and, as of April, 1,127 programmes have been implemented, with 5,121 jobseekers finding employment.
In addition, Sivakumar said the government has also signed a memorandum of understanding with government-linked companies and private companies covering training to overcome mismatch and unemployment among technical and vocational education and training (TVET) students.
He said that under Budget 2023, his ministry has been given the mandate to implement the active labour market programme initiative that was launched on May 1, which included an employment transition programme for TVET apprentices and school-leavers, or TVET Career, which provides a monthly RM600 incentive payment for three months to employers who employ TVET graduates.
He said the informal gig riders’ career building programme also provides a RM300 monthly allowance for three months to gig riders who actively undergo skills training to obtain stable jobs in the formal sector, as well as skills improvement programmes for TVET apprentices and school leavers. – Bernama, May 20, 2023
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