PETALING JAYA: Malaysian jobseekers should adjust and adapt to using online platforms for more career opportunities, says Datuk Seri Dr Wee Jeck Seng (pic).

       The Plantation Industries and Commodities Deputy Minister said the online trend was here to stay and those seeking employment need to understand how it works to benefit from it.

       “The unprecedented Covid-19 pandemic has led to a shortage of foreign workers in many industries, as many took a break and returned home since early last year.

       “Although business operators have been offering work opportunities for locals to fill jobs, it hasn’t been easy.

       “For example, in a virtual job carnival with the Human Resources Ministry in March, six agricultural companies offered 8,700 jobs but only 753 people registered, 268 came for interviews and 76 got the jobs.

       “Such virtual job fairs need more promotions so that more people would learn and utilise them,” he said while launching the GoCare Virtual Recruitment Day organised by the Crisis Relief Squad of MCA (CRSM) yesterday.

       Also present was MCA economic bureau chairman Tan Tuan Peng.

       Wee said the oil palm sector was in need of over 30,000 harvesters, which used to be filled by foreign workers.

       “Similarly for the furniture sector, over 20,000 workers are needed. Although companies are offering higher pay of over RM3,000 with a better package, it is still hard to get workers.

       “It is high time we provide training to locals to lessen our reliance on foreign workers,” he said, adding that it was also part of cross-ministerial plans to train more skilled local workers.

       So far, through the ministry’s Institute of Malaysian Plantation and Commodities (Impac), over 70,000 Malaysian youth have been trained at its six institutes nationwide that offer over 1,900 courses.

       “The commodity and commodity-based products sectors contributed RM85.1bil to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) last year.

       “Of the amount, RM48.3bil was contributed by the palm oil sector, which also employs the most foreign workers,” he said, adding that out of a million foreign workers, only 220,000 of them were locals.

       Wee also lauded Tan and GoCare’s effort and urged them to conduct more virtual career fairs or job matching sessions to help more job seekers get hired.

       Tan said the Virtual Recruitment Day focused on job matching and briefings of loan schemes for businesses.

       “This is the second day of the online campaign and the response has been good so far.

       “We have more than 40 companies recruiting via the GoCare platform and I call on more businesses to make use of this platform to hire the right candidates,” he said.

       Other than job matching, Tan said GoCare also provides online selling, education and upskilling opportunities as well as corporate clinics to help businesses transform.

       “This is not the first time GoCare has done such a campaign and we will continue with this to help job seekers and businesses,” he added.