Hanoi (VNA) – To address high unemployment, Malaysia will implement an initiative called Malaysians@Work, aimed at creating better employment opportunities for people, especially youths and women, this year.

The initiative is divided into four programmes that provide various incentives to workers and to get companies employ more local labourers.

The Graduates@Work is tailored for the hiring of graduates who have been unemployed for more than 12 months, and each graduate who secure work will receive a wage incentive of 500 MYR (over 120 USD) per month, for two years. Employers, meanwhile, will receive a hiring incentive of up to 300 MYR a month for each new hire for the same period.

The Women@Work programme seeks to create 33,000 job opportunities a year for women aged 30 – 50 years old and who have stopped working for a year or more.

Under this programme, returning women workers and their employers will receive the similar incentives as given by the Graduates@Work.

On top of that, the current income tax exemption for women who return to work after a career break will be extended for four years until 2023.

The Locals@Work is a hiring cost equalisation programme designed to help Malaysia shift away from low-skilled foreign workers dependency.

The wage incentive for Malaysians who are hired to replace foreign workers is at either 350 MYR or 500 MYR per month, depending on the sectors for two years, while employers will be paid a hiring incentive of 250 MYR per month for the same period.

The Apprentice@Work is a Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) incentive programme, aimed at encouraging more youths to take up TVET courses, in the form of an extra 100 MYR per month on top of existing allowance for trainees on apprentices.

The initiative, which will cost about 6.5 billion MYR, will be implemented in five years. It is expected to create an additional 350,000 job vacancies for Malaysians and reduce the country’s dependence on foreign workers, estimated at up to 130,000 people./.
VNA