SOCSO Holds First Ever Career Carnival For OKU Community With Almost 2,000 Job Offers
Human Resources Minister Datuk Seri M Saravanan said the government will not leave behind people with disabilities (OKU) in its commitment to lowering the unemployment rate in the country.
By Yap Wan Xiang — 14 Dec 2021, 04:06 PM
The government, through Social Security Organisation (SOCSO), has organised a career carnival for people with disabilities (OKU) at World Trade Centre Kuala Lumpur today, 14 December
According to a statement, the career carnival is the first of its kind.
The day-long event has activities such as career counselling, account registration assistance for national employment portal MYFutureJobs, and open interview sessions.
As many as 16 employers took part in the carnival organised for the OKU community and almost 2,000 jobs are up for grabs.
Employers who are offering jobs at the carnival include Padini Holding Bhd, HDTEC Energy Sdn Bhd, FMJ Synergy Sdn Bhd, Lulu Group Retail Sdn Bhd, Teleperformance Malaysia Sdn Bhd, and more.
In a tweet, SOCSO said food and beverage operators, such as McDonald's and Nando's, are also offering jobs to OKUs.
The carnival is being held in conjunction with the International Day of People with Disability, which falls on 3 December.
The event aims to help 500 attendees with learning, hearing, speech, and physical disabilities, among others, to get into the workforce
Citing data from the Department of Social Welfare (JKM), SOCSO said the number of OKUs in Klang Valley is about 137,186.
"Of the number, a total of 9,164 people have registered with the MYFutureJobs portal from 2020 until now," SOCSO said.
"A total of 1,000 people from the number has managed to get hired through the MYFutureJobs portal as well as the carnival organised by SOCSO."
It said employers are eligible to receive incentive payments of up to RM36,000 over the period of six months for every OKU hired.
Additionally, SOCSO said employers can also send employees with disabilities to undergo training to improve their skills. The training programme fee — which is between RM4,000 and RM7,000 per employee — will be borne by the government under the National Career Generator Carnival initiative.
Officiating the event, Human Resources Minister Datuk Seri M Saravanan congratulated SOCSO for the career carnival and said he is proud of the agency's effort in helping Malaysians get hired
He said the 1,967 jobs offered at the event shows his ministry's commitment to lowering the unemployment rate in Malaysia and that the OKU community is not left behind.
"Based on the statistics of SOCSO's Employment Insurance System, up until 26 November 2021, a total of 54,915 people have lost their jobs," he said.
"Nevertheless, the National Recovery Plan (NRP) implemented by the government is starting to show results."
"The unemployment rate has decreased by 48.7% for the period between January to November 2021."
"In fact, the data from the Department of Statistics Malaysia also showed that the number of unemployed individuals decreased to 729,600 individuals in September 2021. The figure was 782,500 at the beginning of January this year."
The minister added that the government has allocated RM3.8 billion into the fourth iteration of the Wage Subsidy Programme (PSU 4.0), which is expected to benefit a total of 2.5 million employees.
According to him, as of 30 November, RM1.1 billion has been channelled into 94,814 employers, with 1.13 million people being hired.
Saravanan revealed that the government has spent RM15 billion on the entirety of PSU so far and it has placed 2.9 million Malaysians back in the workforce.
