87% of Malaysians feel they are not skilled enough to stay employed

Almost 9 in 10 Malaysians (87%) indicated that there is a need for them to be reskilled in order to stay employed, according to Randstad’s latest Workmonitor survey.

The survey, which was conducted with about 400 people in March, also revealed that the sentiment is highest among more Generation-X workers, with 92% of respondents aged from 35 to 44 years old feeling so.

While nearly eight in 10 (79%) of respondents said that their employers are committed to helping them grow professionally, 57% felt that the training and re-skilling programmes provided do not adequately prepare them for the skills they need in the future.

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“Employees and candidates are already feeling the immense pressure to develop new capabilities. There has never been a more urgent need to equip the workforce with digital skills in an effort to close the widening gap,” Jaya Dass, Managing Director, Malaysia and Singapore at Randstad said.

“Companies need to provide more dynamic and robust training programmes that can help their workforce gain new skills that will allow them to be more agile, creative and productive.”

Malaysians also believe that employers are more inclined to hire younger workers due to the “tech-savvy” skills they possess, with 75% of respondents indicating so.

“Even though younger talent are seen to be more desirable for their digital knowledge, employers should not expect or rely on them to drive the organisation’s digital agenda. Such high expectations of our younger talent do not really set them up for success, as they have yet to learn the
know-how of working in a corporate environment, such as budgeting and project managing,” she added.

“Instead, companies should create a collaborative environment where employees from all different generations can experience growth together.”