Govt urged to enhance skilled job opportunities for biz in MSME sector

PETALING JAYA: It is time the government empowers the micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME) sector to increase the number of skilled jobs in the country, say researchers from the Khazanah Research Institute (KRI).

In the study titled “Limited Skilled Jobs Opportunity”, KRI researchers Hafiz Hafizi Suhaimi and Hawati Abdul Hamid argue the potential of MSMEs here is not being maximised.

“In 2022, this sector contributed almost 40% to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), although more than 99% of businesses in Malaysia are in this category.

“This sector has enormous potential if it is driven by the right policies and initiatives to enable its productivity to reach a better level, including through a surge in innovation, the use of technology and the development of employee competencies,” they told The Star recently.

The researchers found that Malaysia is not creating enough skilled jobs to accommodate the high number of graduates entering the workforce each year.

They said the government should continue developing the MSME sector through an approach based on innovation and technology, in accordance with the SME Master Plan 2012-2020.

This way, they said, the country will be able to create more skilled job opportunities, while at the same time be able to increase the contribution of the MSME sector to the country’s GDP.

“The increase in MSME productivity should be driven by a skilled workforce.

“Since MSME is a major player in the service sector, its capabilities and activities need to be looked at more closely in contributing to a better overall performance.

“The creation of dominant semi-skilled jobs in the service sector should be addressed through precise and integrated interventions,” the researchers said.

Additionally, they said, although there is an encouraging increase in the amount of investment coming into Malaysia, it is not directly contributing to creating skilled jobs.

“In fact, it (the investments) may just drive an increase in the number of semi-skilled jobs as well as hamper the real capacity of the existing labour market.

“The widespread creation of semi-skilled jobs is also likely to make Malaysia uncompetitive at the regional level due to places that are more competitive in terms of cost, skills and so on such as Vietnam and Indonesia.

“The dumping of foreign workers in Malaysia can actually also contribute to the negative impact if semi-skilled jobs are filled by this group,” they added.