Malaysia sees over 462,000 jobseekers employed through public initiatives

Over 462,000 jobseekers have secured employment through the government’s 27 initiatives as of October 31 this year, according to Malaysian Finance Minister Datuk Seri Tengku Zafrul Aziz.

“We have consistently exceeded our monthly projections, putting us on track to provide 500,000 job opportunities by end of the year,” he said, reports The Edge Markets. 

A total of 56,000 jobs have been created under the government’s short-term employment programme, MySTEP, comprising over 39,000 roles in the public sector, and close to 17,000 in government-linked companies. 

This has helped improve Malaysia’s unemployment numbers, which has gradually recovered to 4.5% in September this year, compared to 5.3% in May 2020, the minister added. 

“Moving forward, our labour market is expected to further recover, in line with our economic growth which is on track to achieve 3% to 4% this year, and 5.5% to 6.5% in 2022,” he said. 

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“As a first step towards resolving the issue of job mismatch, the National Employment Council has realigned training programmes to industry demands, establishing a key performance index of at least 80% employment for trainees in government-funded programmes,” he added.