The government will undertake interventions such as identifying skills needed by industries and mainstreaming technical and vocational education and training (TVET) in a bid to address unemployment woes, especially among the country’s youth.

It is also eyeing to reduce dependency on foreign workers and cultivate entrepreneurship culture in Malaysia to achieve that objective, according to the Economic Outlook 2019 report released by the Finance Ministry today.

Zooming in on youth unemployment, the document noted that insufficient skills or education, lack of job experience and skills mismatch were among the factors that contributed to the problem.

“This implies that experience is an important indicator of employability. Furthermore, many employers rank communication as the most important skill in job applications,” said a feature article on the profile of unemployment in the country contained in the report.

This was followed by work experience, interpersonal skills, passion and commitment, teamwork, relevant qualifications, good academic results, desire to learn, ability to work under pressure and pro-activeness.

The report further said that the government had implemented several measures to encourage companies to assist graduates to enhance their hard and soft skills via on-the-job training.

“As of Aug 31, 2018, 125,986 graduates have been directly and indirectly assisted through various programmes,” it added.

Currently, 539 companies comprising 514 private firms and 25 government-linked companies such as Maybank Group, CIMB, Axiata, Celcom, Huawei and Intel are working closely with the Education Ministry to improve graduate employability.

-- Bernama