KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 17 —  A total of 2,667 youths in Sabah have lost their jobs between January and Nov 5, this year, the Dewan Rakyat was told today.

Deputy Human Resource Minister Datuk Awang Hashim said during the same period, a total of 5,071 individuals have been redeployed in the state.

He said based on the Department of Statistics data, the unemployment rate involving youths aged 24 and below in Sabah was 17.3 per cent.

"We have various programmes such as the Career Carnival, Hiring Incentive Programme, reskilling and upskilling programmes through appointed training providers.

"The government also provides the national employment service through the MyFutureJobs portal which should be utilised by every job seeker especially youth,” he said during the question and answer session in Parliament today.

He was responding to a question from Datuk Mohd Aziz Jamman (Warisan-Sepanggar) who wanted to know the government’s efforts to address the unemployment issue in Sabah and whether the ministry will expand the job training or apprenticeship programmes for upskilling, reskilling and cross-skilling in the state.

Meanwhile, Awang said to date, some 1,228 graduates were involved in the apprenticeship programme in Sabah, while 21 training centres and 109 companies in the state were involved in the National Dual Training System. — Bernama