KUALA LUMPUR: Lower-end jobs, such as cleaning, need to be rebranded to attract the locals, says Malaysian Employers Federation (MEF) executive director Datuk Shamsuddin Bardan.

“No local wants to be a cleaner. “But if the job is rebranded as ‘environment assistant’, it will be attractive to locals,” he said while responding to the Khazanah Research Institute (KRI) school-to-work transition survey report.

The survey showed that youths see foreign workers as a threat to their job opportunities.

Shamsuddin said jobs taken by some 65,000 of these “lower-end expatriates” with salaries between RM2,500 and RM5,000 should be given to locals. He said more than 75% of jobs were in the unskilled and low-skilled sectors, and job seekers cannot insist on waiting for the ideal job to come by.

“Reality bites. Those who decide to accept jobs outside of their field of study, or jobs that are beneath their qualification, are the minority.

“That’s why over 200,000 diploma and degree holders are still unemployed,” he said.

Shamsuddin also suggested employers introduce mechanisation and automation in the workplace.

“An automated lorry sweeper machine, for example, would empower staff to be more productive. Skill certification is also critical as it’s linked to how much the employee earns.

“These factors would justify a pay bracket of between RM2,550 and RM3,500,” he said, adding that Malaysians cannot continue doing things the old way and expect higher wages.

Disagreeing on the survey’s findings that youths do not ask for too much, and neither are they choosy, he said they ask for unrealistic salaries at interviews.

Instead of asking for the mean salary, he said the KRI survey should look at the expected starting salary of candidates seeking their first job.

On employers playing a limited role in enhancing youth employability, Shamsuddin said many employers contributed to the Human Resources Development Fund but failed to use the fund to train staff.

He said although universities and colleges were encouraged to collaborate with the private sector to enhance student employability, most were only doing it to fulfil government directives.

“The previous government introduced 2u2i which embedded practical training yet we have not heard anything about the fate of this programme.”

2u2i is a work-based learning programme in which students spend two years in the university and two years on hands-on training in the industry.