UTM Career Centre director Assoc Prof Dr Che Rozid Mamat (right) taking Tazrina (centre) for a tour of the TalentCorp satellite office. Looking on are (from left) TalentCorp graduate, diaspora and industry partnership vice-president Nazrul Aziz, UTM deputy vice-chancellor Prof Dr Rosli Md Illias and Mathew.
Govt agency sets up satellite office at varsity in Johor to strengthen workforce
THE state government believes the setting-up of the Johor-Singapore Special Economic Zone (SEZ) will further increase the need for local talents, especially in five main sectors.
Johor youth, sports, entrepreneur development, cooperatives and human resources committee chairman Mohd Hairi Mad Shah said sectors such as electrical and electronics, pharmaceutical, health, oil and gas as well as data centres were the top five in the state.
Having already attracted RM70.6bil in foreign direct investments last year, which was the highest in Malaysia in the past decade, he said the state expected to see about 12,000 jobs being created as a result of the investments.
“I believe the SEZ and the state government’s Digital Johor Masterplan 2030 will further increase the need for more local talents,” he said in his speech read out by his representative Johor Human Capital Strategic Unit general manager Tazrina Ahmad during the launch of the satellite office at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM).
Mohd Hairi said it was timely for Talent Corporation Malaysia Bhd (TalentCorp) to choose Johor as its base for a satellite office, which would benefit the state in terms of strengthening the workforce.
Other industries that the state government wanted to focus on were life sciences and health technology, engineering and advanced manufacturing, digital economy, green economy, halal industry, automotive (electric vehicles), aerospace as well as ports and logistics, he added.
During the 10th Singapore-Malaysia Leaders’ Retreat on Oct 30, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim and Singapore prime minister Lee Hsien Loong agreed to jointly develop the SEZ.
Both countries will be inking a memorandum of understanding on the parameters of the SEZ by Jan 11 next year.
Meanwhile, TalentCorp Group chief executive officer Thomas Mathew said the satellite office, located at UTM’s Career Centre, symbolised a significant milestone for the corporation and its commitment to nurturing talent development in Johor.
He cited Johor’s potential as a major contributor to the country’s gross domestic product as a key reason for the agency’s focus to bolster its talent development efforts.
“TalentCorp has also cooperated with the state government to look into the data analysis available to fulfil the industry’s needs.
“We have stationed our officials in several states including Johor and Penang and we were pleased to be invited by UTM to set up a satellite office to focus on strengthening the workforce and look into the future needs of industries,” he said.
Mathew said that so far this year, TalentCorp had hosted two industry-academia collaboration workshops in Johor.
It had also introduced its first state-level critical occupations list and launched the Mynext Graduate Employability Grant, where UTM was the first recipient of the fund to host activities for their students.
