Youths must equip themselves with digital knowledge and skills

 Youths must equip themselves with digital knowledge and skills to enhance economic prosperity so that they are better prepared in meeting any job demands of the current employment market.

National Recovery Council (NRC) chairman Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said students, graduates and youths must be encouraged to attend highly skilled programmes to help improve their employability and professionalism.

"They should engage themselves in multi-disciplinary businesses and make effort to acquire digital skills to face the challenges of the pandemic in preparation towards moving to the endemic phase.

"Apart from that, they must also develop soft skills to ensure marketability and employability," he said in his speech at the Minds For Malaysia Conference 2021 (M4M): Bridging The Skills Gap virtual conference today.

Muhyiddin said currently there were still many graduates and youths out there that were not proficient enough in communicating or in expressing their views besides lacking problem-solving skills.

"They must acquire or develop certain soft skills, commonly sought by employers, to complement the technical know-how as this will set them apart from other job seekers."

He said some of the skills that they need to acquire include intra-personal and interpersonal skills, emotional intelligence, analytical thinking and innovativeness, creativity, initiative driven, and critical minds.

"They must always be hungry for knowledge. There is no denying that these skills which are highly in demand in the job market, coupled with leadership capabilities and social influence, teamwork and time management, will help reduce employability gap among graduates and youths in this country."

He adds the unprecedented Covid-19 pandemic has also transformed the labour market landscape around the world, including Malaysia.

"This change in landscape has created a drastic job mismatch, indicating that there is a shift in labour demand patterns.

"This situation if not handled wisely will cause a country to face significant challenges in providing the quantity and quality prospective graduates who can meet the needs of the future labour market.

"Given this, the society should see future jobs in the direction of multi-field or multiple specialisations.

"It should no longer be focused on one area of specialisation only. Specialisation and expertise in diversified fields should now be the priority in facing the working environment post-Covid-19 pandemic.

"Therefore, there is a dire need for students, graduates, youths and housewives, too, to adapt to changes brought about by the pandemic and digitisation by focussing on diversification of their skills."

Muhyiddin said he hoped that the private sector and higher learning institutions will enhance the use of new technologies to facilitate the process of doing business and learning so that the economic recovery of this nation can be further accelerated.

"This health crisis also serves as a wake-up call for all of us to upgrade and strengthen technology and infrastructure to facilitate the education industry and other businesses in new normal.

"Urgent action is required to drive a digitally inclusive agenda to enable millions of people to work, learn and connect digitally.

"In other words, the enhancement of talents and potentials of Malaysians must be intensified.

"At the same time, we need to act proactively amid these challenging times by leading the technology utilised to empower the people, rather than replacing them."

Source:

https://www.nst.com.my/news/nation/2021/10/735017/youths-must-equip-themselves-digital-knowledge-and-skills