PENAMPANG: Employers in the plantation sector has again been urged to give priority to local workers.
Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Tan Sri Bernard Dompok said there were many local graduates and trainees with knowledge and skills required by industry.
“They should be given the chances to hold suitable positions and be given fair salaries, and allowed to prove the claims that they are not committed, less skilled and choosy are not true,” he said.
Speaking at the launch of the Ministry’s Career Carnival here yesterday, he said cultivating skilled local manpower was vital towards ensuring a sustainable industry.
Dompok said the plantation and commodity sector required not only labourers but also competent and creative researchers to invent and produce new value-added products.
Presently, he said this sector was still depending heavily on foreign workers with more than two-thirds of its workforce being imported workers.
As such, he said, efforts to attract especially the younger generation to work in the plantation and commodity sector was vital, to ensure future workforce security.
Dompok noted that as of September, some 26,167 vacancies were available in plantations and estates accross the country, including 5,549 vacancies in Sabah.
The vacant positions include foremen or supervisors, harvesters, pickers and general workers for fertilising duties, he added.
“We are well aware how many foreign workers this sector uses, where as at September the 299,560 individuals or 76 percent of the total 394,334 workers in plantations across the country were foreign labour.
“But jobs in plantation sector are not only limited to groundwork like harvesting palm oil or to tap rubbers, as the Ministry often receives complaints from plantations or mill owners the difficulty in getting locals especially for the posts of managers, mechanics, electricians, information technology staff, and those involving administration and finance,” he said.
To address the issue, Dompok said various measures have been taken including through Institute of Malaysian Plantation Industry and Commodities (IMPAC) formed in 2010, to train more locals to fill in the vacancies in this sector.
“As they come up with more training and courses to build up certain expertise, I also hoped to see rubber tappers, oil palm harvesters and the likes to be certified to enhance the credibility of such career paths,” he added.
About 500 youths, undergraduates and job seekers attended the seminar held earlier in the morning in conjunction with the event, while an estimated 1,000 visitors visited the one-day exhibition during the Carnival.