Datuk Seri Hajiji Noor (centre, in white hat) visiting one of the booths Sabah Maju Jaya Premier Career Carnival 2022 in Kota Kinabalu on Saturday (Oct 8).
KOTA KINABALU: Datuk Seri Hajiji Noor has called on Sabahans to take full advantage of the job portals set up by government departments and agencies to hunt for jobs suitable to their qualifications.
The Chief Minister said the government has launched portals such as the Sabah Jobs Portal (SJP) and MYFutureJobs which were platforms to search for jobs locally as well as a free avenue for employers in the private sector to advertise job vacancies.
As of Sept 27 this year, he said 5,491 job seekers and 233 employers who were looking to fill in 365 vacant positions had registered with the Sabah Jobs Portal.
"The creation of the national jobs portal MYFutureJobs and the Sabah Jobs Portal will enable efforts on job matching and other career services as well as to offer government initiatives.
"Based on the data by the Social Security Organisation (Socso), a total of 1,013 people lost their jobs between January and Sept 16 this year while at the same time, 10,971 people have received job placements.
"Hence, the youth and other job seekers are urged to register themselves with the Sabah Jobs Portal. I want to see more from the younger generation or school leavers to utilise this portal," he said.
Hajiji said this when launching the Sabah Maju Jaya Premier Career Carnival 2022 at the Sabah International Convention Centre here on Saturday (Oct 8).
The jobs carnival was organised by the Sabah Science, Technology and Innovation Ministry together with its agency the Sabah Human Resource Development Department as well as Socso.
More than 1,500 job opportunities were being offered by 20 employers from various sectors.
Hajiji said the country’s economy has gradually improved since the nation entered the transition into the endemic phase of Covid-19, with the unemployment rate decreasing to 3.9% as of April this year.
He added 15.85mil people have been recorded to have jobs nationwide up to July this year.
According to him, statistics from the Labour Force Survey showed the unemployment rate in Sabah until May this year stood at 9.1%.
He said the Covid-19 pandemic had severely affected the working sector whereby many industries were forced to fold, causing the unemployment rate to rise.
Hence, Hajiji said in order to remedy the situation, the government has taken various steps including holding career carnivals as a medium to connect job hunters and employers.
He said the Sabah Human Resource Development Department has held six such carnivals so far this year, with 1,282 out of 3,109 applicants getting job placements. There were 14,654 job vacancies being offered.
Hajiji said the initiative taken by Socso through its Jaminan Kerja-Insentif Penggajian (JKIP) programme has also helped people to attain jobs this year.
Up to July 18, he said the JKIP programme and the MYFutureJobs portal have helped secure jobs for 113,672 Malaysians.
At the same time, the Chief Minister also urged employers to provide the best incentives to job seekers.
Meanwhile, Hajiji said the Sabah government has introduced a new initiative known as the Young Entrepreneur Successful Scheme (Syabas) to help the youth in Sabah to expand their existing businesses or start a new one following the effects of Covid-19.
"The state government has allocated RM10mil for the Syabas programme in order to provide financial aid to young entrepreneurs in Sabah," he said.
