PETALING JAYA: The rapid digital transformation taking place in Malaysia has amplified the need to bridge the mismatch between job roles and available candidates, warned LinkedIn, while stressing potential economic and business competitiveness impact if left unaddressed.
LinkedIn’s Malaysia country manager and Southeast Asia head of emerging markets, Rohit Kalsy, stated that its recent study has revealed a significant skills mismatch challenge, which has been exacerbated during the years of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“LinkedIn’s 2023 Future of Recruiting report showed that over half of recruiting professionals (55%) consider finding candidates with the desired skills for job roles as a major challenge in Southeast Asian countries including Malaysia,” he told SunBiz.
While the Covid-19 pandemic has brought about acceleration in the adoption of technology globally, its impact has been particularly striking in Southeast Asia as the region added millions of new digital consumers in this period, he said.
“The region is undergoing a rapid and unprecedented digital transformation, and there is a greater need than ever to upskill and reskill its workforce. If left unaddressed, the skills gap challenge will hurt the economy and competitiveness of businesses,” he stressed.
Rohit said the way for businesses and professionals to navigate the current climate is to adopt a skills-first mindset.
“For businesses, I would advise learning and development (L&D) leaders and HR professionals to foster a culture of learning and development. This will help expand their talent pool by embracing a skills-first approach to hiring and developing talent. It is important for leaders to adopt an adaptive leadership approach, viewing this period as an opportunity to iterate and adjust. Doing so will benefit them greatly when the cycle ends,” he said.
He added that it is crucial for companies to stay updated with industry and skills trends, identify skill gaps within their workforce, in order to remain competitive and capitalise on opportunities within the growing economy.
“Forward-thinking organisations that invest in their people during these times will be the ones that outperform competitors and come out stronger,” Rohit said.
In Malaysia, LinkedIn research has shown that the top skills required for a particular job have changed by an average of 27% since 2015, and the pace of change has accelerated during the pandemic. If this rate continues, it is projected that skills could change by nearly 50% (ranging from 43% to 47%) by 2025. Furthermore, between 2021 and 2025, it is likely that Malaysia will witness the emergence of three new skills among the top skills required for jobs in the country.
There is thus urgency to move towards a skills-first mindset, according to LinkedIn. Companies have traditionally hired based on educational qualifications, where someone went to school, and/or years of job experience, but more are now looking at skills. Now, there’s a massive shift under way that’s steadily moving the labour market from a pedigree-based model to a skills-first model.
Globally, almost half of the hirers on LinkedIn (45%) are using skills data to fill open roles. More than 365 million skills have been added to people’s profiles over the last year. Furthermore, LinkedIn’s Future of Recruiting 2023 SEA report shows that three-quarters of recruiting professionals say skills-first hiring will be a priority for their company in 2023. In Southeast Asian markets including Malaysia, since 2019, the share of recruiter searches on LinkedIn that include a skills filter has grown by 25% – and today, recruiters are 50% more likely to search by skills than by years of job experience.
Disruptive tech skills, or hard skills, are in high demand across the board by employers. In today’s increasingly complex and fast-evolving business environment, the importance of soft skills also cannot be overstated. The ability to think critically, collaborate across teams, handle ambiguity, and focus on customer centricity are some examples of soft skills that are valuable to employers. Soft skills are also more transferable across jobs and industries.
In Malaysia, for example, LinkedIn data showed that the top five most in-demand skills in the country include management, leadership and communication skills, indicating that companies are looking for talent to step up and lead teams through uncertainty while keeping them engaged and motivated in their jobs. While disruptive tech and digital skills are high in demand, skills that help businesses run efficiently as well as reach new customers and retain existing ones through sales know-how are also the ones companies need most right now.
“There are encouraging signs that professionals in Malaysia are equipping themselves with a combination of hard and soft skills, to enhance their employability and remain competitive and agile. Malaysian learners were among the 7.3 million globally who enrolled in the top 20 most popular LinkedIn Learning courses last year (1 June 2021 - 30 June 2022), almost double from the preceding year. This indicates that more are building skills to future-proof their careers.
“Our vision has been creating economic opportunities for every member of the global workforce since day one. Through the years, we have evolved to address this by providing a unique view of the economy through a skills-first lens. Momentum is already building, as we can see how both employers are shifting their mindset to put skills at the center of their hiring process and talent development and how members showcase skills and invest in learning,” Rohit said.
LinkedIn is also thrilled that the Malaysian government is putting upskilling and reskilling initiatives on the national agenda. In late 2022, HRD Corp, a company under the purview of the Ministry of Human Resources, and LinkedIn established a strategic collaboration to support workforce upskilling and reskilling efforts for HRD Corp stakeholders. The partnership with HRD Corp will allow 80 thousand employers and over 4.3 million talents across Malaysia’s key industries, including agriculture, manufacturing, construction, transportation, services, mining, and quarrying, access to some of the most in-demand courses consumed by professionals around the world, and will help the country’s workforce build important skills.
“However, we’re still in the early days of a paradigm shift where there are massive possibilities of how the workforce can have greater agility and/or mobility - an increasing priority for C-Suite. We’re seeing this in Malaysia as we work with top companies across varied industries, including finance, technology, energy, and infrastructure, in upskilling and reskilling their workforce as well as finding and attracting talent,” he concluded.
LinkedIn’s Malaysia country manager and Southeast Asia head of emerging markets Rohit Kalsy
Source: The Sun Daily
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