OVER 200,000 JOB OPPORTUNITIES AVAILABLE THIS YEAR

KUALA LUMPUR, May 2 (Bernama) -- The Human Resources Ministry has identified
a total of 209,675 job opportunities that can be filled by locals this year, its
minister Dr. S.Subramaniam said Saturday.

He said the vacancies were in the manufacturing, services, plantation,
farming and construction sectors.

"We hope we can reduce our dependence on foreign workers and employers will
give priority to hiring locals," he said at the national-level Workers Day
celebration which was officiated by Prime Minister Najib Razak at the Putra
Stadium in Bukit Jalil here.

He said 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
added.

He said through concerted efforts by his ministry, till April 30, a total of
7,285 of those laid off were able to find new jobs.

The government, he said, encouraged employers to hire retrenched workers and
had provided several tax incentives for this.

"The ministry is prepared to provide training in skills required by
industries, including providing allowances for the trainees concerned," he said.

Dr. Subramaniam also said employers needed to take various steps to attract
local workers like drawing up work schedules that were suitable and offering pay
packages that were appropriate for the work performed.

He said among the initial steps the ministry had taken in tackling
retrenchment was setting up national and states level tripartite retrenchment
monitoring committees which meet once a month to recommend measures to alleviate
the problem.

Besides this, the ministry had also expanded the service of its
'JobsMalaysia' portal to include the public sector.

"Since it was launched in May 2008, till April 26 2009, a total of 306
employers from various government agencies had used the portal to source
workers," Subramaniam said.
-- BERNAMA