Miti Minister Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Abdul Aziz said 'we need to ensure that we continue to attract Malaysians to stay in the country, perhaps by offering more attractive salaries' to address the talent shortage.

PUTRAJAYA (May 29): To address the talent shortage in Malaysia, the Ministry of Investment, Trade and Industry (Miti), together with the Human Resources Ministry, is finalising some incentives to bring back highly-skilled local talent from abroad.

Miti Minister Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Abdul Aziz said this during a media briefing on the National Semiconductor Strategy (NSS) on Wednesday.

“We see that highly-skilled Malaysian engineers are being poached by global players. It is not only the semiconductor industry that is facing talent shortage, but other industries as well.

“We need to ensure that we continue to attract Malaysians to stay in the country, perhaps by offering more attractive salaries. Companies must play a role in this, as ultimately, it is a function of supply and demand,” he said.

He was responding to reporters’ questions on what initiatives are being undertaken by the government to address the talent crunch in the semiconductor industry.

The government also has an ambitious target to train 60,000 highly-skilled local engineers in the semiconductor industry, as announced by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim on Tuesday.

"The challenge [for us] is not just in ensuring we have enough highly-skilled engineers but also to ensure that the number [of workers] continues to grow,” said Tengku Zafrul.

“We need collaboration between the government and the private sector, for example, universities, TVET (technical and vocational education and training) institutions, and other educational bodies, to help us achieve our target,” he added.