The Malaysian Reserve
18 June 2021
More than 100,000 hired through PenjanaKerjaya 2.0
The programme includes incentives of up to 60% of monthly salary with a maximum payment of RM6,000 per month to employer
A TOTAL of 114,137 individuals have secured new jobs between January and June this year, while the majority of the job seekers benefitted from the PenjanaKerjaya 2.0 hiring incentive programme, said Finance Minister Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz.
Introduced under the Budget 2021, PenjanaKerjaya 2.0 hiring programme is an enhanced version of the previous hiring and training programme under the Social Security Organisation (Socso), which promotes the creation of quality jobs and reduces unemployment among Malaysians.
“Since its implementation on Jan 1, 2021, until June 10, 2021, Socso has successfully found placement for 114,137 job seekers of which 95.4% were applicants for the PenjanaKerjaya 2.0 programme.
“Announced on Nov 6, 2020, under Budget 2021, the programme aims to provide employment opportunities to school leavers, graduates and the unemployed, at the same time, increase their marketability.
“Apprenticeship programmes are also available to graduates and school leavers to enhance their knowledge and gain the “on the job” training to increase the chances of securing a better job,” he said in the 57th Implementation and Coordination Unit between National Agencies report yesterday.
The hiring programme includes incentives of up to 60% of monthly salary with a maximum payment of RM6,000 per month to the employer. It also provides training assistance of up to RM7,000, a minimum salary or allowance of RM1,500 per month and mobility assistance of up to RM1,000.
Meanwhile, about RM12.12 billion of soft loans for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) facilitated by Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) has been approved by local banks and accepted by the businesses, Tengku Zafrul said.
To date, the soft loans facilitated by the central bank — Special Relief Facility (SRF), Automation and Digitalisation Facility (ADF), All-Economic Sector Facility (AES) and Agrofood Facility (AF) — have benefitted 25,680 SMEs.
“Although SRF funds have been fully utilised, SMEs can still apply for the remaining financing schemes available through BNM funds such as ADF, AES and AF.
“SMEs can also obtain other financings through the imSME platform which can help in matching financing required with various fund providers for SMEs,” he said.
As of June 4, a total of RM67.5 million has been distributed to 13,869 businesses in the form of grants and loans for the subscription of digitalisation services.
For the Penjana micro-credit financing through Bank Simpanan Nasional, a total of RM421.2 million has been channelled to 12,667 micro SMEs (MSMEs), including in the retail and services sectors, while Penjana assistance for the tourism sector saw RM600 million allocated for the SMEs and MSMEs that were still affected by Covid-19.
“The government has allocated RM600 million for SMEs and MSMEs who are still affected by Covid-19. As of June 4, there were 666 applications for this funding, and of this total, 327 applications were approved with total funding of RM65.1 million,” Tengku Zafrul said.
Web source: https://themalaysianreserve.com/2021/06/18/more-than-100000-hired-through-penjanakerjaya-2-0/