KUALA LUMPUR: More Malaysian businesses are projected to hire aggressively, with a primary focus on talent development, attracting and retaining individuals with the necessary capabilities to make the most of scarce skills.
Economists said this could bring down the unemployment ratio in the local economy as employers would choose flow-to-work operating models, which create pools of resources that they can deploy flexibly and on-demand.
Juwai IQI chief economist Shan Saeed said these pools would be formed based on similarity of skills rather than similarity of business functions, making it easier for organisations to access the right skills when they need them.
"The government is focused on growth-inclusive-sustainability to attain macroeconomic stability to move ahead faster to reach advanced economy status," he told the New Straits Times (NST) recently.
According to the latest report from Mckinsey, the Covid-19 pandemic had disrupted labour markets globally during 2020.
However, the job market remained buoyant as companies would want to hire more workers post-pandemic.
Although short-term consequences were sudden and often severe as millions of people were furloughed, others rapidly adjusted to working from home as offices closed.
Meanwhile, Shan said the others look at the pandemic's long-term influence on consumption and the potential for a broad recovery led by enhanced productivity and innovation.
Malaysian Rating Corp Bhd (MARC) chief economist and head of research Firdaos Rosli concurred that job opportunities are likely to rise, sustaining the economic growth outlook.
"The creation of new jobs to bring down unemployment via the 'JaminKerja' initiative is merely a band-aid measure aimed to increase social stability as job opportunities.
"This initiative is not driven by increased economic activities but rather through higher government intervention," he told the NST.
Firdaos said job creation might help push for economic growth in the immediate term, but it will be challenging to return to pre-pandemic era growth post-2022.
"The reopening of international borders remains uneven; thus, it may prolong the recovery of affected industries though we hope it is not the case."
He said the number of new jobs created must be in surplus compared to the number of jobs lost.
"We must also not discount the reduction in real wages caused by wage cuts and rising inflation.
"Therefore, the government should look at the supply-side to encourage greater job creation by the private sector," he said.
MIDF Research analyst Abdul Mui'zz Morhalim said various initiatives for the businesses and even large allocation for training and upskilling programmes would also support job growth and the overall labour market recovery next year.
"Despite the positive outlook, the ongoing global health crisis remains one of the downside risks to the growth outlook next year," he told the NST.
Other concerns include the prolonged global supply chain bottlenecks, sluggish recovery in the job market, and volatility in the financial market, given the expected policy tightening, especially in the developed markets.
He cautioned that any slowdown in the international trade activity would likely affect Malaysia's growth as there is concern over a slowdown in China, one of Malaysia's main trading partners.
Source:
https://www.nst.com.my/business/2021/11/743372/economists-expect-employers-be-hiring-spree
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