SIG on Industry-Ready Talent (SIGIRT)

In today’s changing world, Malaysia’s talent ecosystem is confronted with new and unprecedented crisis requiring adept and nimble solutions to confront global, social, economic and technological developments. Advancements in Deep technologies (deep tech), technologies that transcend multiple technological domains and influence a variety of applications, Malaysia’s talent will need the necessary skills to remain competitive. Hence, producing talent with strong hard- and soft-skills alone is not enough, but a shift towards “smart skills” (skills co-developed with other humans) and “sharp skills” (skills co-developed with computers) is needed.

On top of that, skills mismatch has been a persistent issue in Malaysia since the last decade and it has becoming more apparent in recent years. This skills-mismatch arise from the misalignment between the skills of graduates and the opportunities provided by industry, leading to underutilisation of our skilled labour. This mismatch has resulted in skilled graduates accepting semi-skilled or low-skilled jobs due to a lack of skilled positions on the job market with half of those between 15-24 age group employed workforce might be categorised as overqualified for their position.

Therefore, there is an urgent need for strategic interventions to align higher education with the demand of industry as well as to promote a constructive framework of sustainable talent development in ensuring the kind of talent Malaysia needs. 

In relation to this, ASM has established the Special Interest Group on Industry-ready Talent (SIGIRT) to perform a short study and prepare a position paper on talent development in Malaysia. The objectives of the study are to identify the current status and challenges throughout the talent pipeline from higher education to employment as well as to formulate strategic direction for the generation of industry-ready and future skills focused talent to drive knowledge economy development in Malaysia.