THE ongoing East Coast Rail Link (ECRL) project is expected to provide about 2,000 job opportunities in Selangor’s locomotive industry.
State human resources and poverty eradication committee chairman V. Papparaidu said about 80% of the jobs induced by the RM50.27bil national infrastructure project require local manpower.
“This is a good opportunity for our youths. The state government will help to equip them with the skills needed through education and training courses that meet the industry’s needs,” he said during the state assembly sitting at Bangunan Dewan Negeri Selangor in Shah Alam on Tuesday (Aug 11).
He was responding to Nushi Mahfodz (PN-Semenyih), who asked about the state government’s plans to optimise manpower requirements with Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) qualifications to support the locomotive, semiconductor and manufacturing industries.
Pappraidu said the state government has implemented several initiatives such as Kerjaya Selangor, which is carried out in collaboration with the Social Security Organisation (PERKESO) through the MyFuture Jobs platform, to match job-seekers with employers after considering their qualifications, skills and industry needs.
“The state government also held job fairs such as JobCare Selangor, which come with interview opportunities to help TVET graduates land a job.
“Based on PERKERSO’s statistics, between January and July 10 this year, Selangor has produced 10,111 TVET graduates," he said.
Pappraidu said in the same period, 78,030 job vacancies in Selangor require a diploma qualification or above.
He said 3,965 of these vacancies are available in high-skilled industries such as automotive, semiconductor and manufacturing, with jobs such as automotive engineers, data scientists and software developers offered.
“All of these jobs require technical competency which can be equipped through TVET training,” he added.
Nushi also asked whether the state government had plans to conduct a mapping exercise across different districts in Selangor to match the graduates’ skills to the industries.
In response, Papparaidu said the state government will need to obtain data from universities and technical institutions to gauge the number of graduates in a certain field to match their skills properly.
“I believe that there is a need for us to conduct the mapping as areas such as Shah Alam and Pelabuhan Klang have different economic activities and industrial roles from other areas,” he added.
