KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 16 — PKR federal lawmaker Fahmi Fadzil officially opened the Lembah Pantai Jobs and Training Centre today with the aim of assisting Malaysians who became jobless in the Covid-19 pandemic.
Fahmi, the elected representative of Lembah Pantai, said the initiative was meant to help this group return to gainful employment.
The initiatives include skills matching to help jobseekers find openings that were best suited to their abilities, he said.
Citing the households in the Bottom 40th percentile (B40) of monthly income earners within his constituency, Fahmi said they much preferred the reliability of working salaries over one-off assistance, which he also said was not sustainable.
“When you give aid or supplies to these families, perhaps it could last one, two or three weeks. But what they need the most is jobs,’’
“So, what the centre aims to do is, almost on a bespoke basis, we’ll try and find a specific job for a person,’’ he said.
The centre is collaborating with social enterprise ventures and local businesses to offer training and reskilling for jobseekers, especially those looking to leave their current fields for jobs that were in demand, he added.
Fahmi explained that the training sessions would also allow the business operators and professionals who were conducting them the chance to directly interact with fresh graduates and jobseekers who could be their potential hires.
However, he said this was not the centre’s sole objective. Fahmi said the initiative would allow the collection of raw information on the employment situation at the constituency level that would be invaluable to policy-making, particularly with regards to welfare assistance.
“As a parliamentarian, we often get data but only at the national level. What we needed the most is granular data,” he said.
The data could then be brought to Parliament for further discussion, which the MP said might help inform other lawmakers on what areas needed attention.
Originally scheduled for opening on May 1 to coincide with Labour Day, Fahmi said the launch had to be delayed due to the movement control order that remains in effect.
The centre is located at Centrio Pantai Hillpark, next to Fahmi’s Lembah Pantai parliamentary service centre. Fahmi said interested applicants are welcome to visit during regular office hours.
