MIRI: The nation, Sarawak in particular, needs to do something about the over dependence on unskilled foreign workers, which had hampered the nation’s efforts to become a high income economy.
Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Dr George Chan said the number of unskilled foreign workers had doubled since 2000 and had reached 1.9 million.
“The influx of these unskilled workers had retarded investments in mechanisation and innovation especially in the agricultural and manufacturing sectors.
“Consequently such trend had caused low productivity and dampened the nation’s aspiration to move to high income economy,” said Dr Chan when officiating at the second session of the sixth convocation of training institutes of the Manpower Department (ILJTM) at the Miri Industrial Training Institute (ILP Miri).
He said to reverse the trend, in the 10th Malaysia Plan, the government would focus on creating a pool of skilled workers who are innovative, resilient, competitive and highly motivated in their jobs.
Last year, the nation produced 120,000 skilled workers from the various public training institutes and colleges including ILJTM, he said.
“Today alone, 1,990 graduated from ILJTM in the Eastern Region (Sabah and Sarawak),” he added.
To help achieve the nation’s vision of becoming industrialised and developed by 2020, the state had implemented various development policies,” he said, adding that the focus was on the promotion of science, research and innovation as strategies to ensure Sarawak maintained its high economic growth.
In pursuit of this, he said the government had also set aside large financial allocations to set up various training institutes and institutions of higher learning such as University Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas), Curtin University of Technology, ILP and Giat Mara.
The Deputy Chief Minister said at the same time Sarawak also focused on developing its other mega projects such as the Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy (SCORE), which offers abundant opportunities including job opportunities and investment.
He also disclosed that the government had spent RM9 billion on infrastructure development in SCORE which could attract foreign investment of up to RM300 billion in the next 30 years and provide over 1.5 million jobs in 2030.
“Under Budget 2011, a total of RM93 million had also been set aside for the development of infrastructure in SCORE,” he said, stressing that the people must play their roles too.
“Fresh and young graduates like you too play an important role and your graduation today is not the end of your studies but the beginning of knowledge seeking. Get the job that best suits you and strive to improve past methods to improve productivity.”