Business

Saturday April 4, 2009

Coping with the job market in Penang

By DAVID TAN


GIVEN the slew of news coming out of Penang on companies cutting jobs and unemployment rising, it may come as a surprise that there are still those who are lucky enough to have found jobs soon after they were laid off.

For Angie Phuah, 31, she managed to do exactly that three weeks after losing her job in a software manufacturing company. She is now working on a freelance job with a recruitment agency. ”There are jobs in the market. It all depends whether you want to take it or not,” says Phuah, who landed her new job by doing online search. And she did this without having to go through the investPenang set-up Career Assistance and Training Centre (CAT).

The CAT centre, located in Komtar, was set up by the state government to assist and match the skills of the unemployed or retrenched workers with job opportunities out there.

Even so, not all jobs available out there may fit one’s skill sets. ”The problem is that many of these jobs may require qualifications that the job seeker does not have, as most of the vacancies available in JobStreet.com are specialised IT and engineering jobs,” says Chee, who used to work for an electronics company in Bayan Lepas but was recently retrenched. Two weeks later, she secured a job at a private education institution with the help of friends.

InvestPenang executive committee chairman Datuk Lee Kah Choon says the CAT, which has some 2,700 jobs and about 800 registrants, was set up precisely to match the skills of job seekers to jobs available out there.

”These jobs come from all kinds of industries. There are executive and non-executive jobs from the hospitality and services and manufacturing companies that are still hiring,” he elaborates. There is still demand for engineers, technicians, production workers, training instructors, waiters, waitresses, and researchers.

The largest group of applicants that the centre has so far drawn is production workers (113), administration, clerical, front office and receptionist (85) and engineers (57).

The jobs available through CAT do not reflect the actual job market situation, as there are other jobs available through JobStreet.com such as jobs for engineers, nurses, human resource managers, micro-biologists and assistant account managers.

On the state government’s RM10mil training scheme for retrenched workers, Lee says investPenang was in discussion with potential employers and trainers on the matter.

”We want to make sure that the people we sent for training end up having jobs after that. No point training people and leaving them jobless afterwards. Thus we need to find out from employers what are their needs and the kind of vacancies they have available,” he says.

Towards this end, the centre holds regular discussions with players in the hotel and tourism industries, Penang Water Supply Corporation and the local councils.

Lee also says the centre is working out a training and subsistence allowance for those undergoing training.

Last year, some 3,251 locals were retrenched in the state, of whom 1,766 were laid off by 58 employers in Seberang Prai and 1,485 by 71 employers on the island. In Jan 2009, there were 791 locals and 522 foreigners retrenched by 31 employers in Penang.

Presently the unemployment figure in Penang hovers around 1,700.

Dell, Flextronics, Jabil Circuit, Spansion, and Sony are some of the multi-national corporations that have recently offered voluntary separation packages to their workers.

Intel has closed down some of its manufacturing facilities in Penang while NEC Computers Asia Pacific has completely shut down its operations in the area following its decision to withdraw from the Asia Pacific market.

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