Strong economy spurs job creation, says Rahman

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s solid economic performance commensurates strongly with job creation in the labour market, says Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Abdul Rahman Dahlan.

“From 2010 to 2016, 2.26 million jobs have been created, of which 679,300 were high-skilled jobs.

“Job creation since 2010 was broad-based but strongest in the services sector which created 1.78 million jobs during the period, in line with the services sector being the biggest contributor to Malaysia’s economy with its share of contribution to gross domestic product (GDP) at 54 per cent,” he said yesterday.

He added that with strong job creation, the country was able to maintain full employment with unemployment kept at the low rate of three to 3.5 per cent.

“I attribute this excellent achievement to the Economic Transformation Programme (ETP) envisioned by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak.”

He said the government had been implementing various initiatives to address the issue of graduate and youth unemployment.

“Since 2011, the government has introduced Skim Latihan 1Malaysia (SL1M) which has helped 130,000 graduates improve their marketability in the job market.

“As a result, more than 90 per cent of the trainees have secured work either by the companies that trained them or by others.”

He added that under TalentCorp, there were also Graduate-Career Accelerated Programme (GCAP), a six-week training programme designed to transform graduates into highly-employable executives for the service industry and Graduate Employability Management Scheme (GEMS), which equipped fresh and unemployed graduates with industryrelevant skills and experience via a place-and-train methodology.

“Apart from up-skilling and re-skilling programmes, there are ample grant programmes, research and commercialisation funds and cradle investment funds for new businesses to choose from and there are also special funds for Malaysian youths who aim to start or sustain their own businesses.”

Rahman said the Young Entrepreneur Fund is one such fund introduced by the government through the SME Bank.

With low interest rates, the SME

I attribute this excellent achievement to the Economic Transformation Programme (ETP) envisioned by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak.

DATUK SERI ABDUL RAHMAN DAHLAN

Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department

Bank provides financing opportunities of up to RM100,000 and similarly, the Graduate Entrepreneur Fund, also known as TUS (Tabung Usahawan Siswazah), is a soft loan scheme aimed at graduates.

“The government under the leadership of Najib will continue to provide stable economic growth to sustain more job creation for the people because economic growth by itself is meaningless if it doesn’t bring benefit to the people.

“Being a responsible government, Barisan Nasional will continue to provide solutions and looking at all possibilities to ensure more people are employed and at the same time making sure we deliver more world class talents,” he said.