By Sherilyn Pang
SHAH ALAM, Feb 24 — There is a huge demand for advanced skills in the country that must not be dismissed and that the aerospace industry is a potentially rewarding sector to invest in, says Selangor Menteri Besar Dato’ Seri Amirudin Shari.
Amirudin was highlighting the need to invest in a high-skilled workforce and do away with low-skilled workforce to move up the high-skill value chain during a virtual forum to discuss Selangor’s post-pandemic economic plans on the ‘Post-pandemic economy: Where is the direction?’ broadcast programme yesterday.
“The demand for high-skilled labour is huge. Let’s take the aerospace industry as an example. The demand for this sector is very high but what the (labour) market has been offering to companies has not been able to fulfil their needs as we have all along been producing only low-end technical abilities in the market and this is a real situation that has been happening.
“This is an area that we should indeed be investing in, whether it is at the Federal or state- level administration,” he emphasised.
Amirudin said the Selangor government has invested to set up a framework for this particular purpose.
Drawing reference to overseas policies that ensure a clear framework for talent management in their high-skilled sectors, Amirudin said programmes are in place to emulate the efforts of the latter.
“During our visit to Germany to learn about their technical and vocational training programmes, I realised that (we) have been working in silos all this while. In their country, they have a very clear framework of where their labour force would be channelled. Whereas in (our country), the ministry involved in this technical and vocational training alone already has exceeded seven to eight ministers…(but),” he said.
“The education of this high-skilled expertise can be at the Federal level and even as the ecosystem is yet to be fully established, with the Selangor government’s investment of about RM50 million to RM60 million in this area, Insya-Allah (God willing), it can be materialised, had it not been for the Covid-19 pandemic.
“This can be turned into one of our (state) modules or capitals for our strength in the coming budget or additional budget that we may announce in a matter of time,” he added.
The virtual programme, which was broadcasted on Media Selangor’s Youtube and Amirudin’s Facebook page, featured ‘Tokoh Wartawan Negara’ (National Journalism Laureate) Tan Sri Johan Jaaffar as the moderator and prominent economist Professor Dr Jomo Kwame Sundaram and former chairman of Khazanah Research Institute (KRI) Dr Nungsari Ahmad Radhi as guests speakers.
