M'sia needs to increase percentage of skilled workforce to 40 per cent - Riot
On realising the gap which needed to be filled, he said the government under the 11th Malaysia Plan had set a target to increase the proportion of highly skilled workers to 35 per cent by 2020. - File Photo
At least 40 per cent of Malaysia's workforce must be highly skilled workers in order for the country to become a high-income nation, said Human Resource Minister Datuk Seri Richard Riot Jaem.
He said so far only 28 per cent of the Malaysian workforce were highly skilled workers.
On realising the gap which needed to be filled, he said the government under the 11th Malaysia Plan had set a target to increase the proportion of highly skilled workers to 35 per cent by 2020.
"The percentage of high skilled workers in Malaysia is still low compared to other developed countries where the percentage of highly skilled workers has exceeded 40 per cent.
"As such the ministry is committed to development programmes to enhance the skills of the local workforce," he said in a speech at the opening of the HR Summit 2016 Skills and Competencies seminar here, Monday.
Riot added that the government would continue to re-engineer education and skill training to ensure they were more relevant and integrated in producing more skilled workers.
Meanwhile, Riot said currently there were about 3.6 million foreign workers in the country of whom only 1.9 million were legal workers.
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