Confidence from Malaysian Businesses over BN Employment Strategy

Unless your head is buried in the sand, it is difficult to miss the fact that Malaysia's economy is growing – and at an impressive rate. Growth is at 5.6 per cent and unemployment is remarkably low – tipping just 3.3 per cent, a number that can be considered full employment.
Consequently confidence is understandably high among investors and entrepreneurs, both foreign and domestic.
The latest figures from the Regus Business Confidence Index paint an even more reassuring picture, showing that 94 per cent of Malaysian Businesses are planning to maintain or increase their staff numbers this year.
Considering the sheer number of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Malaysia, that could represent a staggering rise in job opportunities and it corresponds closely with Barisan Nasional's GE13 manifesto, which promises to create 3.3 million new jobs, of which 2 million are planned for high income sectors.
Training those workers too is of vital importance. This weekend the Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin forecast that Malaysia would need a steady stream of skilled workers over the next ten years to cater for the country's remarkable growth trajectory.
Under such schemes as the Vocational Education Transformation Programme, Muhyiddin said that Malaysia would be well placed to boost enrolment rates in technical and vocational courses in line with that of students from the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries (currently about 44 per cent).
"There were about 117,000 applications for this year's vocational college intake. This is a good sign," he said.
Indeed, according to John Henderson from Regus, young people are key to the equation.
"As younger people come into the workforce, they have a very different attitude to work, placing flexibility and quality above more traditional considerations," he said.
"But flexible working also brings additional benefits of helping businesses cut fixed space costs and increase staff productivity."
There is no doubt that simplifying the path from education to the workforce should be a priority for whoever takes Putrajaya at GE13. The question is which manifesto sticks to that proven path and which gets lost in the unknown.