by AZALEA AZUAR / TMRpic

THE biggest issue that the job market is facing is not unemployment but rather mismatch of talents.

Human Resource Minister Datuk Seri M Saravanan said the ministry already has different agencies and companies such as TalentCorp, HRD Corp and Social Security Organisation where they are running a lot of programmes to tackle unemployment.

“And we have a proven record of 5.3% from 5.9% which means we are able to tackle unemployment.

“But the biggest challenge now is that people are talking about mismatching,” he said in a press conference after the launch of the mynext initiative today.

The first generation of graduates do not possess the skills in the current job market so mainly most of them are not getting the right job.

Therefore, Saravanan urged the Ministry of Higher Education to revisit their whole system.

“I’ve been asking them to go to the root cause to identify the root cause, it is not my fault.

“The whole world is talking about IR4.0 so your qualifications for today may not be relevant. What was relevant 20 to 30 years ago may not be relevant now as the whole ecosystem is changing,” he added.

He stressed that the education system should be shaped in a way that local students are not competing among other Malaysians but at an international level.