Friday February 10, 2012
By LOH FOON FONG
foonfong@thestar.com
KUALA LUMPUR: The Government may have to inculcate in the young not only work skills but also find ways to improve their attitude towards work.
Human Resource Minister Datuk Seri Dr S. Subramaniam said too many youngsters were turning down jobs and were job-hopping, especially in lower-rank jobs in factories, restaurants or hotels.
“They don't want to grow with the job and acquire skills. It is an attitude problem we have to address,” he said after launching the National Human Resources Centre (NHRC) yesterday.
Dr Subramaniam said this in response to a report by an English daily yesterday on the availability of a million jobs in the country while 12% of workers job-hop every year.
The daily reported that the labour force market survey by the Statistics Department showed that about 12 million people were in the workforce and 384,000 were jobless up to November last year although jobs were aplenty.
Asked if low pay was an issue, Dr Subramaniam said it could be one of the reasons and the Government was working on a minimum wage for various sectors, which the Cabinet would announce in a few weeks.
During the launch of the NHRC, Dr Subramaniam said the NHRC provides advisory and consultancy services on human resources matters to small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
He said it was set up last August to develop high quality human resources and reduce the country's reliance on foreign workers.
These would help achieve the goals under the Economic Transformation Programme.
So far, 7,892 employers and 858 individuals have registered with the NHRC portal.
According to the SMEs Annual Report 2010/2011, 99.2% enterprises registered in Malaysia were made up of SMEs and they contributed to 59% of the nation's workforce but only 32% of Gross National Product and 19% of total exports.
Free advisory services can be obtained by calling its toll free number 1-800-88-4800.