KLANG: Employment opportunities await those rendered jobless by the Covid-19 pandemic as well as those struggling due to long-term unemployment under Budget 2022.
Besides this, the budget presented by Finance Minister Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz also offered incentives to employers who hire marginalised and focused groups such as the disabled, Orang Asli and prisoners.
For starters, RM4.8bil has been allocated to create 600,000 job opportunities under a job guarantee concept plan named Jamin Kerja Keluarga Malaysia (JaminKerja).
Tengku Zafrul said JaminKerja would ensure jobs for Malaysians, including the almost 750,000 people estimated to be currently jobless.
In addition to this, RM2bil has also been allocated for hiring to be continued under the Social Security Organisation (Socso) but with the JaminKerja concept.
Some 300,000 jobs are scheduled to be created under the Socso employment initiative.
The government will provide an incentive of 20% of the monthly wages for the first six months and 30% for the subsequent six months to employers who hire under the auspices of Socso.
“Apart from this, to encourage employers to offer job opportunities to focused groups such as the disabled, Orang Asli and prisoners, the government will provide an incentive of 30% of their monthly wages for the first six months and 40% of the monthly wages for the subsequent six months for salaries of RM1,200 and above,” he added.
To encourage women to return to work, the initiative will also be extended to employers who hire women who have not been working for more than 365 days, single mothers and housewives.
The Malaysia Short-Term Employment Programme (MySTEP) initiative will also be continued with the offer of 80,000 contract job opportunities of which 50,000 will be in the private sector and 30,000 in government-linked companies beginning next January.
An allocation of RM1.1bil will also go towards a targeted 220,000 people to undergo various programmes and skills training.
“Among the initiatives that will be implemented are placement training programmes which come with job guarantee,” he said.
He added that upgrading skills with the cooperation of industries would also be increased with priority given to digital skills such as the Global Online Workforce (GLOW) prgramme under the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC).
Earlier, Tengku Zafrul said the pandemic had left a significant impact on jobs and people’s earning capacity with unemployment rate rising to 5.3% in May 2020.
Although there is improvement with unemployment at 4.6% as of August this year, almost 750,000 people are currently jobless.