Jobs Opportunities in Iskandar

Are you from Johore or would you like to work there. Well, good news as there would be more than 44,800 vacancies for critical and high-skilled workers in Iskandar Malaysia from now until 2015.

A report from the New Straits Times newspaper noted that employers at the development corridor area had created 193,198 such vacancies through the JobsMalaysia work portal between 2009 until now.

State Human Resources, Science, Technology and Innovation Committee chairman M. Asojan was quoted as saying that  the vacancies were in the manufacturing sector, the services sector and others.

"Based on the statistics, the development of Iskandar Malaysia had created more than 200,000 job opportunities.

"With the opening of Johor Premium Outlets, a shopping outlet selling branded items in Kulaijaya, and the Legoland International theme park in the near future, more than 2,000 job opportunities will be created," he said to a question by Datuk Tee Siew Kiong (BN-Pulai Sebatang).

Asojan also said the state government, through Iskandar Regional Development Authority, had come up with a comprehensive masterplan on the feasibility study of the development of Iskandar Malaysia.


"We have come up with an action plan to gauge the supply and demand of the local community in tandem with its human resources. It involves three main strategies -- human resource and talent development as well as building and preserving human resources."

According to the masterplan, there would be 850,000 work opportunities until 2025.

TalentCorp: Contributing from outside

When Talent Corporation Malaysia (TalentCorp) was announced, the buzz words were, “luring Malaysians from foreign country back to Malaysia”. Actually it’s more thant that.

According to The Sun newspaper report quoting TalentCorp’s chief executive officer (CEO) Johan Mahmood Merican, TalentCorp is poised to work towards optimising foreign talent and up-scaling Malaysian talent, instead of merely focusing on bringing Malaysians home to work.

Speaking to the media after participating in a panel discussion at the Government Linked Companies (GLC) open day, he said the corporation is also looking at ways how Malaysians abroad can contribute to the country from wherever they are.

"In looking at talent needs (in the country) it cannot just be (focused on) Malaysians abroad," he said.

"We need to also be aware of the opportunities (available) to utilise foreign talent and up-scale Malaysian talent," he was quoted as saying, adding that the organisation was looking into optimising foreign talent within Malaysia.

"We are working very closely with different key sectors of the economy, to find what can be done to address the critical skills gap, and how to forge public-private partnerships to address these shortages," said Johan.

Asked about an announcement in Parliament last June by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Abdul Razak that TalentCorp would lure about 700,000 Malaysians working abroad home, Johan said luring such a figure was impossible.

"What he articulated when he made the announcement was how many Malaysians were overseas. I do not think it was any attempt to say we'll bring everyone back. Clearly we cannot bring everyone back," said Johan.

Job Alert makes you a winner

The recent Job Alert contest saw thirty winners, 10 each winning for three weeks, ending with the ultimate winner, Mellesa Lai Mia Yun, walking away with a Netbook. But for those who subscribe to Jobsdb Job Alert option are all winners themselves.

The subscribing members will have the job of their choice in their email as they open it every morning and what they see will get them thinking. Is that the job they want? Or even better, is it time to move on?

Or is that the wrong alert? Well, then you have to log in and check your preferences. Have you clicked on the right industry? What about your key words? Get the right one.

And wait for the mails to come. Job opportunities are aplenty with the government’s Economic Transformation Program initiatives itself will see creation of 36,595 jobs by 2020.

(From right) Susan Sia, Sales & Business Development manager representing JobsDB to give the Netbook to Mellesa Lai, the winner for Job Alert Subscription Contest

Nine new ETP initiatives and more jobs

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Abdul Razak has announced nine new initiatives in the Economic Transformation Programme (ETP), which include Malaysia's first private teaching hospital and the establishment of two new specialists hospitals, The Sun newspaper reported.

He was quoted as saying the new initiatives are expected to bring in RM2.77 billion in investment and create 36,595 jobs by 2020.

Speaking at the 6th ETP Progress Update here, Najib said the nine new initiatives (see below for list), along with the six previously announced ones, are expected to generate RM63.88 billion in investments, contribute RM66.13 billion in Gross National Income (GNI) and 63,531 new jobs.

This development will see an investment of RM850 million by 2012, which will in turn generate RM1.3 billion in GNI and 2,000 jobs by 2020.

"In the Healthcare NKEA, two specialists hospitals will be established,” Najib said.

"The first will be a 220-bed hospital dedicated to heart, brain, spine and joint diseases while the second is a 300-bed hospital to provide comprehensive children and women's healthcare," said Najib, who is also the Finance Minister.

The report also noted that these two hospitals, undertaken by Sime Darby Healthcare group, will cost RM240 million and RM40 million respectively and will create 1,539 new jobs by 2020.

Aviation industry needs skilled workers. Are you game?

Specifically, the Maintenance, Repairing and Overhaul (MRO) service industry, which is part of the whole big Aviation sector that needs lots of skilled worker, according to Bernama news agency.

In its report, it noted that the global Maintainence, Repairing and Overhaul (MRO) services industry is forecast to worth US$65 billion (RM195.3
billion) by 2020.

And the industry was identified by the government as a profitable industry and
could be one of the “black horses to steer the nation into achieving a high-income nation status”.

The report also said that the Economic Transformation Programme Laboratories expects the Entry Point Projects, listed under the MRO section, to create 21,000 extra jobs and contribute an additional US$4.2 billion (RM12.62 billion) by 2020.

It also quoted Malaysian Aviation Training Academy’s Chief Executive Officer Sulaiman Dahlan, in an interview with Bernama recently, as saying that a Ministry of Human Resources survey revealed that Malaysia needed over 16,000 aircraft engineers a year, but in the last 15 years, only 3,000 licensed engineers were churned out.

He said the vocation was not being promoted efficiently, thus, causing alack of awareness from the public on how important the requirement needs to be fulfilled.

Time to reconsider which industry you want to be in.

KPI for marketability of students

Is your university capable enough to enable you to get a job once you graduate? Well, there will be a Key Performance Indicator (KPI) to figure that out.

In fact, graduate employability has been included as a Key Performance Indicator (KPI) for all vice-chancellors of public universities.

The Star newspaper quoted Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak as saying that the move was part of the long-term goal to raise the quality and marketability of local graduates.

“Others include introducing entrepreneurship curriculum, implementing soft skills programmes and student internship programmes in public and private corporations before the students graduate.

“Continuous dialogue between the universities and industry is being held to raise the quality of the graduates, an approach which is expected to reduce the mismatch between supply and demand for skilled manpower,” he said when launching the 1Malaysia Training Scheme (SL1M).

Najib said the Government was also implementing special programmes as a short-term measure to raise graduate employability and that included the training programmes carried out by the Higher Education Ministry, Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM), Khazanah and the Skills Development Fund Corporation involving 12,000 graduates.

He said this meant that out of the 20,000 unemployed graduates, 8,000 did not have the opportunity to undergo additional training to improve their marketability.

“Some of them come from the rural and interior areas as well as from low-income families.

“This background influences their character and self-confidence and affects their ability to secure employment

“Thus, by carrying out a last mile intervention in the form of finishing schools, I believe they will become more confident, and they are the target group of the SL1M,” he said, adding that the initiative was also for those who failed to be employed six months after graduating.