PIKOM LAUDS THE MINISTRY OF ENERGY, WATER & COMMUNICATIONS (KTAK) IN PROVIDING 3,000 JOBS TO UNEMPLOYED ICT GRADUATES.

In today’s published articles in the local dailies, Minister of Energy, Water and Communications, Datuk Shaziman Abu Mansor, mentioned that the government will spend RM 72 million in recruiting unemployed ICT graduates to become facilitators in schools nationwide that has SchoolNet connectivity. He further addedd that the internship program will pay RM 1,000 monthly allowance for two years to help unemployed ICT graduates during these trying times.

Petaling Jaya, March 20, 2009 - PIKOM, the National ICT Association of Malaysia strongly supports the Minister’s efforts to address the issue of unemployment quickly in view of the recent allocation announced in the mini-budget. This would be a quick way in battling the increasing unemployment rate in Malaysia, where some private research houses are forecasting a retrenchment rate as high as 5% for 2009 –Malaysian Institiute of Economic Research (MIER).

On top of PIKOM’s agenda since late last year has been to reduce unemployment and increase employment opportunities especially in the ICT industry. We laud KTAK’s initiative in leading these efforts.

We hope that the program will provide the appropriate skills required to enhance the ICT workforce in Malaysia. Graduates employed under this program should be able to secure jobs easily in the open market upon completion of their internship. This increase in the quality of Malaysia’s workforce could help in the country’s quest for a bigger share of the global ICT pie.

PIKOM has constantly been emphasizing on the importance of ICT as a life long skill and through its PIKOM Assessment of Competency Test (PAC) has created a comprehensive mechanism for identification and creation of an employable talent pool to support the growth of the industry and remains competitive globally. The objective of PAC is to build a pool of ICT workforce that is in line with industry standards and needs.

We are currently in discussions with the Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE), Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC) and Outsourcing Malaysia (OM) members for a pilot on university students. PIKOM is also in dialogue with the Ministry of Human Resource (MOHR) to incorporate the PAC as part of their “Train and Place Program”.

We hope the government will support our request to uplift the ICT workforce in order to stay competitive and create high value type of jobs.

KTAK also needs to be commended for exempting companies earning less than RM 5 million annually from contributing to the universal service provision fund until the end of next year. This would certainly assist those companies to lower their OPEX and hopefully not retrench workers.