Muhyiddin chairs first meeting of National Employment Council

KUALA LUMPUR: Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin today chaired the first meeting of the National Employment Council (NEC) held virtually here.

The Prime Minister’s Office in a statement said the council members include Senior Minister of International Trade and Industry Datuk Seri Mohamed Azmin Ali, Senior Education Minister Senator Dr Radzi Jidin and Human Resources Minister Datuk Seri M. Saravanan, as well as Finance Minister Senator Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz, who is also the alternate chairman of the NEC.

The statement said the council, which will meet regularly according to current needs, will also comprise representative of private sectors and industry players, whose names will be announced later.

“Through the setting up of the NEC, the Prime Minister is confident that job creation initiatives, which will kick off in 2021 and beyond, will be more organised and implemented in comprehensive, integrated and effective manners.

“These efforts will be guided by the National Job Creation Strategic Plan, which will be developed later, to take Malaysia to greater heights while ensuring the wellbeing of the people,” it said.

According to the statement, the NEC was set up to execute the strategies to create and preserve jobs in line with the first objective of Budget 2021, which is “People’s Wellbeing”.

The NEC is also the highest governance council in the formulation of policies, implementation and monitoring of government strategies and initiatives, specifically in achieving the target to create more job opportunities and to tackle unemployment issues.

“The setting up of the council is also in accordance with the government’s aspiration to ensure the recovery and stimulation of the economic sector in Malaysia could be implemented successfully with a comprehensive approach, based on data and in line with the current demands of the industries while taking into account the people’s wellbeing and the country’s economic resilience.

“The NEC plays important roles not only in continuing the momentum of economic recovery and boosting the creation of jobs but also in addressing other related issues, such as underemployment and equal opportunity for the vulnerable,” it said.

The NEC will also be supported by a special high-level task force to be chaired by the Chief Secretary to the Government Tan Sri Mohd Zuki Ali, it said.

Mohd Zuki will coordinate five special task forces, namely on National Education; Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET), Human Resources and Entrepreneurship, Real Economy, and Deeptech and Future Skills.

“These five task forces will be reporting the status of the implementation of the programmes under their respective clusters to the high-level task force on monthly basis.

“The Finance Ministry’s Economic Stimulus Implementation and Coordination Unit Between National Agencies (LAKSANA) will act as the NEC Secretariat and monitor the development of each programme under the NEC initiative to ensure that they will be more effective based on appropriate assessments from time to time,” it said.

In this regard, the statement said Malaysian citizens who are affected or looking for a job can register on the MyFutureJobs portal at https://www.myfuturejobs.gov.my/ which is a one-stop centre and main reference for employment-related initiatives including skill improvement and retraining programmes.

-- BERNAMA