KUALA LUMPUR: Over 12,000 employment opportunities are set to be offered to job seekers at the first Jaminkerja Keluarga Malaysia Career Carnival to be held at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre tomorrow.

Social Security Organisation (Socso) Office Employment Insurance System head Azirruan Arifin said 50 employers would take part in the Jaminkerja initiative, which is based on the "jobs guarantee" concept that will create 600,000 job opportunities in total.

He said the initiative, which is a continuation of the PenjanaKerjaya Programme, was a financial incentive to spur employers to hire workers from among job seekers from Jan 1.

"As for Socso, this initiative is implemented with the target of creating employment opportunities specifically for local job seekers.

"According to Socso's Employment Insurance System statistics, a total of 320,864 placements were successfully made in 2021 and, for this year, the Human Resources Ministry, through Socso, aims to create 300,000 employment opportunities for job seekers nationwide," he said in an exclusive interview with Bernama recently.

Azirruan explained that the initiative's focus was on several categories of job seekers, including vulnerable groups such as individuals unemployed for over 180 days, Employment Insurance System beneficiaries, former servicemen, Orang Asli, former convicts, people with disabilities (PwD) as well as workers aged 50 and above.

He added that the initiative also focused on women who have been unemployed for more than six months as well as single mothers or housewives who are not actively working.

On Tuesday (Feb 15), Finance Minister Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz said that the JaminKerja Keluarga Malaysia initiative, which would create 600,000 job opportunities, involved an allocation of RM4.8 billion and would be launched by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob tomorrow.

Meanwhile, Human Resource Development Corporation (HRD Corp) chief executive Datuk Shahul Dawood said the agency would cooperate with Socso to assist the government in creating employment opportunities through the JaminKerja Keluarga Malaysia initiative.

He said HRD Corp has been entrusted with the responsibility of being the central agency for all human capital development programmes offered and funded by the various ministries and government agencies through Upskill Malaysia.

"As announced under Budget 2022, from the total allocation of RM4.6 billion under the JaminKerja initiative, RM1.1 billion will be allocated to enable 220,000 Malaysians to complete their upskilling, re-skilling, cross-skilling and multi-skilling initiatives through Upskill Malaysia," he said.

He said HRD Corp would continue to ensure the programmes offered were relevant and met job market readiness, including being in line with the Industrial Revolution 4.0 (IR4.0) and the Internet of Things (IoT) era.

According to him, the Training and Skills Upgrading Programme is one of the three components, through Upskill Malaysia under HRD Corp, aimed at reviving the country's employment landscape, with the other two components being JaminKerja Employment Incentive, Malaysia Short-term Employment Programme (MySTEP).

-- BERNAMA