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| Malaysia needs more professional, skilled workers, says Sidek |
| 20-MAR-2010 Intellasia | Bernama |
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| 20 Mar, 2010 - 7:07:00 AM |
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Malaysia needs more professional and skilled workers in moving towards becoming a high income economy, said the Chief Secretary to the government Tan Sri Mohd Sidek Hassan.
He said currently out of the more than 10.6 million Malaysian working population, with 10 million under 45 years old, only 2.8 million or 26 percent were in professional and managerial positions.
"The rest still fall under the bracket of semi to low-skilled workers," he said in his keynote address titled "For Whom The Bell Tolls: Building Empowered Organisations: A Case for Malaysia" at the 11th National Human Resources Summit organised by the Asian Strategy & Leadership Institute (ASLI) here Thursday.
He said developed countries had from 35 to 50 percent of their workforce in the professional category.
"We need to work harder in Malaysia. Our peers, Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore have over 30 percent of their workforce in the professional category. Our workforce is relatively unskilled," he said.
Mohd Sidek said only 80 percent of the Malaysian workforce were educated up to upper secondary level, the Sijil Peperiksaan Malaysia (SPM) or equivalent, with only 25 percent of jobs in Malaysia making the professional streams.
"As the private sector, you hold the key to making a difference; to turning our current market topography towards a high income model. It lies in your own choices of business, service quality and human resource management," he said.
Mohd Sidek said Malaysia's propensity for growth was monumental given the country's resources and the rise of the young population.
"Today, both the public and private sectors continue to invest in schools, hospitals, businesses, highways and other infrastructure in the development of urban and rural facilities. But our greater focus for the years ahead must veer towards software infrastructure and investment," he added.
He also said a new hospital would not bring good patient care but good doctors and medical practitioners would and that "investment in computers will not guarantee tech savvies; education does that."
Mohd Sidek also said given the monumental growth of the Internet, information and computers, Malaysia needed to prepare students for jobs and technologies that did not yet exist and to solve problems that are not known to be problems yet.
"Today's solutions will no longer be the resolutions to tomorrow's problems. We need to think 27th Century today," he said, adding therein lay Malaysia's opportunities and challenges.
"We each must challenge the workplace with questions like are we providing the resources necessary to prepare for 27th Century society? Are we training our children with the knowledge of 27th Century today? Are we, collectively, as a society equipped to move to that Century?, " he added.
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