National HR policy needed to deal with manpower issues

GEORGE TOWN: The federal government has been urged to formulate a national human resource policy to address manpower needs in the country.
InvestPenang director Datuk Lee Kah Choon (pix) said such a policy should meet demands of the industry and services.
He said there was a need as graduates in science, ICT and technical fields were not adequate in meeting market demands.
Lee said graduates output in technical fields dropped in percentage from 2010 to 2015.
He said graduates in technical subjects dropped from 27.22% to 20.9% in that period.
He nonetheless noted that science graduates increased by 12.81% to 13.06% and ICT graduates increased by 8.19% to 8.29% citing Higher Education Ministry figures.
"This call is made in consideration of persistent issues which include mismatch of skills against market demand," he said in a statement today.
The special advisor to the Penang Chief Minister also urged the policy to focus on attracting and retaining talents.
He said Talent Corp managed to attract only 3,600 Malaysians to return home under its Returning Experts Program (REP), out of the estimated 800,000 Malaysians living abroad as reported by the World Bank in 2011.
"Malaysia urgently needs a national human resource policy to provide definitive, clear and transparent information to meet the demands of industry and services," he said, and called for Budget 2017 to address these matters.