KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 9 — The society should see future jobs in the direction of multi-fields or multiple specialisations, where they are no longer focused on one area of specialisation, said National Recovery Council (MPN) chairman Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.

He said specialisation and expertise in diversified fields should now be the priority facing the working environment in post-Covid-19 pandemic.

"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.

"For example, if a person has skills in marketing, finance, sales or engineering, it should be balanced with a variety of other skills with higher added value. Similarly, an engineer, lecturer or government official should also be knowledgeable in marketing, sales, information technology, product development and computing,” he said.

He said this in his special address titled ‘Skilled Youth - The Catalyst For National Recovery’ at the Minds For Malaysia (M4M): Bridging The Skills Gap Virtual Conference, here today.

Muhyiddin said the new norm due to the pandemic has formed the catalyst for transition to Industrial Revolution 4.0 (IR 4.0) which is expected to transform most of the labour market landscape around the world, including Malaysia.

However, he said this change has created a job mismatch, indicating that there is a shift in labour demand patterns, and if not handled wisely, it would cause a country to face significant challenges in providing the prospective quantity and quality of graduates who can meet the needs of future labour market.

Therefore, he recommended the community, especially the youths, to 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.

He said skills in data computing, Artificial Intelligence (AI), product development and cloud computing, for instance, can help create more job opportunities that are almost borderless.

He also encouraged the students, graduates and youths to attend highly skilled programmes to help improve employability and professionalism as well as making effort to acquire digital skills to face the challenges of the pandemic in preparation towards moving to the endemic phase.

"They must also develop soft skills to ensure marketability and employability. There are still many graduates and youths out there who are still 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 technology know-how as this will set them apart from other job seekers,” he advised. — Bernama