PUTRAJAYA, May 20 — Strategic cooperation with various government ministries and agencies has reduced the country’s unemployment rate from 599,600 in the fourth quarter of 2022 to 588,700 people in the first quarter of this year, said Human Resources Minister V. Sivakumar.

He said the interstate unemployment rate also reduced in tandem with the decline in the national unemployment rate, with Putrajaya recording the lowest rate of unemployment of 0.8 per cent, followed by Perlis (2.1 per cent), Penang (2.3 per cent) and Negeri Sembilan (2.5 per cent).

He said some of the initiatives implemented by the Ministry of Human Resources (KSM) through the Social Security Organisation (Socso), Talentcorp, Human Resource Development Corp (HRDC) and Department of Skills Development included providing the job portal MyFutureJobs, which is a virtual platform to match jobs based on qualifications, skills, wages and employers’ needs to help job seekers get employment opportunities.

"A total of 793,086 job seekers have been employed as of April,” he said in a statement today.

In a bid to boost job offers by employers, Sivakumar said Socso implemented interview sessions at all state offices on a daily and weekly basis as well as large-scale employment carnivals.

For this year, he said a total of 4,130 programmes are targeted and, as of April, a total of 1,127 programmes have been implemented, with 5,121 job seekers finding employment.

In addition, Sivakumar said the government has also signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with government-linked companies (GLCs) and private companies covering training to overcome the problems of mismatch and unemployment among Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) students.

He said that under Budget 2023, the KSM has been given the mandate to implement the active labour market programme initiative that was launched on May 1, which included the employment transition programme for TVET apprentices and school leavers or TVET Career, which provides an incentive payment of RM600 per month for three months to employers who employ TVET graduates.

He said the informal gig riders career building programme also provides a RM300 monthly allowance for three months to gig riders who actively undergo skills training to obtain stable jobs in the formal sector as well as skills improvement programmes for TVET apprentices and school leavers.

In addition, he said the extension of targeted employment incentives through the Daya Kerjaya programme, which involves job placement for target groups like youth who have been unemployed for a long time and vulnerable groups, including the hardcore poor, parolees, ex-convicts, women, Orang Asli and persons with disabilities. — Bernama