KOTA KINABALU: Understanding what it takes to train and provide proficient manpower is vital to ensure that the employment development of the state will not be hampered due to the lack of facilities to train manpower.
“We need to understand the job requirements and labour demands of the developing sectors in this state, such as the oil and gas industry and tourism industry and at the same time understand what sort of facility that we need to put in place in order to train people and produce the required manpower.
“There is a need to make sure that we have specialised institutions to train sufficient manpower that will also be proficient,” said Resource Development and Information Technology Minister Datuk Dr Yee Moh Chai.
He said that such highly paid careers also called for highly skilled manpower, hence the need to train people to be able to meet the employment demands.
Speaking to reporters after launching the Sabah Career Expo 2012 yesterday, Yee disclosed that a study conducted to meet such requirement had now reached its second phase, which is also hoped to be able to balance out the problem of unemployment and shortage of workers issue.
“Various programmes had been planned out for next year and one of it is the second phase of the Sabah Manpower Requirement Study 2010-2025.
“We have always had this problem whereby we have people wanting to work but do not have the skills on one hand, and employers screaming out for workers on the other.
“That is why this study that we are conducting is very important and at the same time, the ministry takes initiatives to provide platforms that will hopefully make our youths more employable, such as the Career Expo,” said Yee.
Other than that, said Yee, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the Human Resource Development Department and Petronas had also been signed to conduct a six-month 6G Welding course in Papar.
Forty-two employers took part in the Sabah Career Expo 2012 offering some 2,500 jobs of various backgrounds.
The expo continues today.