IPOH, Dec 15 — The Manpower Department will conduct job fairs in the rural areas next year to open these to wider audiences, Deputy Human Resources Minister Datuk Mahfuz Omar said today.

Citing the recent fair conducted by the ministry at Urban Transformation Centre here as an example, Mahfuz said only 32,000 people attended when there were 41,000 job openings.

Speaking to reporters after a walkabout at a career carnival held in conjunction with the Entrepreneur and Property Carnival in Meru, here today, he said such fairs were proven to be effective in alleviating unemployment.

"So far, 150,000 people managed to find jobs through such fairs,” he said.

Mahfuz also suggested employers to rebrand their job positions.

"Take, for example, production operators. Some may feel degraded when they are called as such. Employers can rename as production specialists. It will be recognition for them,” he said.

He said employees on their part should also get themselves retrained to be more competent.