KUALA LUMPUR: The government is targeting the creation of nearly 40,000 skilled jobs in high-value industries for local talents, said Economy Minister Rafizi Ramli.
He said to achieve this, targeted interventions were necessary in strategic, high-impact industries, particularly those identified in the 12th Malaysia Plan mid-term review.
"The government is committed to creating skilled job opportunities for local talent.
"This is because Malaysia needs to stimulate growth in key industries to ensure the creation of skilled jobs and the development of talent to meet industry needs, as well as to increase the number of highly qualified individuals entering the workforce.
"For instance, the government is setting a target of creating 30,000 jobs in the aerospace industry, 6,000 in logistics and 2,844 in global services."
Rafizi said this in response to a question from Datuk Mohd Shahar Abdullah (Barisan Nasional-Paya Besar), who asked the minister to state the government's plans to stimulate growth in high-skilled sectors and to ensure sustainable job opportunities for future generations.
Rafizi said in April this year, the government had rolled out initiatives under the KL20 Action Plan to create a competitive ecosystem for start-ups and to strengthen the network of collaboration among potential local and international investors.
This, he said, was expected to position Kuala Lumpur in the top 20 in the global start-up ecosystem by 2030 and create 100,000 skilled jobs for locals.
He added that the venture capital ecosystem would also be strengthened to promote entrepreneurship and innovation, which would create a dynamic environment for enhanced global competitiveness.
"The Energy Transition Roadmap (NETR) projects the creation of 310,000 jobs by 2050 across six energy transition drivers.
"NETR also outlines capacity development initiatives through the establishment of green skills in taxonomy, reskilling and upskilling programmes, and strategic partnerships with local universities in the field of energy transition.
"Additionally, the New Industrial Master Plan 2030 aims to bolster the manufacturing sector, targeting the creation of 700,000 new skilled job opportunities with a median salary of RM4,510 per month for workers in the manufacturing industry."
Rafizi also said the government aimed to create 500,000 new job opportunities in the digital economy, especially in the data centre industry, which would support investments by major cloud service providers such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, Nvidia and Google.
He said these data centres, apart from creating job opportunities for data scientists, would also open up doors for those skilled in artificial intelligence.
"This will ensure that the target for skilled job composition reaches 35 per cent by 2025, in line with the country's aspiration to achieve a high-income nation status," he said.