KUALA TERENGGANU, April 3 — A total of 36,700 job seekers have benefited from the PenjanaKerjaya 2.0 hiring incentive programme from January to March this year, said Deputy Human Resources Minister Datuk Awang Hashim.

He said the recruitment involved 5,538 employers who had registered with PenjanaKerjaya which was created to reduce the unemployment rate and revive the country’s economy.

"I was informed that in Terengganu, a total of 182 employers have employed 2,224 people during the period. I am confident and believe that this is a good start for the first quarter of 2021, especially in efforts to stabilise the country’s labour market,” he said in his speech representing Human Resources Minister Datuk Seri M. Saravanan at the Terengganu PenjanaKerjaya Carnival 2021 here, today.

Also present was the state Entrepreneurship, Human Resources, Micro Industry and Hawker Affairs Committee chairman Mohd Nurkhuzaini Ab Rahman, representing Terengganu Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Samsuri Mokhtar.

Awang said under the PenjanaKerjaya programme, jobseekers who received employment offers within a distance of fewer than 100 kilometres (km) would be given mobility assistance of RM500 while those willing to reside at a distance of 100 km and above were eligible for mobility assistance of RM1,000, an incentive to be paid through their respective employers.

Meanwhile, he said from January to March this year, a total of 406 individuals who lost their jobs in Terengganu had registered with the Social Security Organisation’s (Socso) Employment Insurance System (SIP).

Awang added that the number represented 2.03 per cent of the total 20,016 workers nationwide who had lost their jobs so far and would receive SIP financial benefits if eligible, apart from the job search and matching assistance and other job-related services.

Meanwhile, the two-day Terengganu PenjanaKerjaya Carnival 2021 which starts today offers more than 11,000 vacancies involving 85 employers and is an initiative of the state government together with the Human Resources Ministry through Socso.

"The most job opportunities offered are in the oil and gas sector with 3,998 vacancies followed by the plantation sector with 2,500 vacancies. Among the positions offered are for engineers, sales managers, dentists, enterprise supervisors and oil and gas crew,” he added.

As of 2 pm today, a total of 655 participants had undergone interview sessions with prospective employers, of which 98 people have secured jobs while 144 individuals have been listed for a second interview or included in the list to be kept in view.

The event also saw Socso signing a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Terengganu Human Resource Development Centre (T-HRDC) which aims to further strengthen the labour market, especially for the people of Terengganu.

The cooperation, among others, involves job creation, job skills development, provision of coordination and consultation platforms, as well as information gathering and performance evaluation of human resource development programmes in Terengganu.

At the MoU signing ceremony, Socso was represented by its chief executive officer (CEO) Datuk Seri Dr Mohammed Azman Aziz while T-HRDC was represented by its CEO Aminudin Omar. — Bernama