The ongoing pandemic has brought a huge catastrophe to the world in every aspect including society and economy. It affected businesses no matter big or small, public or private sectors. With the huge tragedy comes changes that cannot be avoided but embraced.
Movement restriction, physical distancing, and supply disruption have opened a new path for humans to be able to resume living their lives. The crisis brings evolution to the way of living and whether we like it or not, we have to embrace it. Most businesses, particularly small and medium enterprises (SMEs) were not prepared to deal with such a huge scale epidemic. Many of them had to shut down their businesses due to high rentals and other overhead costs that they could not afford to pay.
Nonetheless, the new normal policies are still restricting physical businesses from fully functioning as they did before. As a result, many have started to pivot into other approaches for them to maintain their businesses since the start of the pandemic and this is where Digital Transformation comes through. The need for digitalization that comes with the pandemic has changed plenty of aspects of businesses such as marketing as well as the interaction between customers and sellers. With Digital Transformation, many individuals have found themselves in need of upskilling and reskilling.
As said before, other than digitalization, unemployment also comes with the pandemic. With many businesses that were shut down and downsized, many Malaysians found themselves out of jobs. As reported by Kam (2020) “An average of 10,000 Malaysians per month lost their jobs in 2020”. According to the Department of Statistics, Malaysia, the amount of unemployment in August was 4.7% and in January 2021, the unemployment rate increased to 4.9%. Losing jobs in what can be said, the remarkably difficult time of our lives can be very damaging to individuals. As many have known and experienced, losing a job could lead to many risks such as losing a home, losing the sole income of the family as well as declining physical and mental health. However, with the high vaccination rate, it seems that the world is getting a little bit brighter.
Looking on the bright side of things, retrenched workers who are back to looking for jobs can take the opportunity during their retrenchment time to increase their chances at employment by upskilling and reskilling themselves. They could use the time to figure out what they want to do, either going back to the same job scopes that they have or maybe, explore jobs that are in demand in the market right now.
Retrenched workers can acquire the in-demand talents within the market and hone those skills to improve their chances of being employed. With the new skills that they acquire, they are not restricted to work under a company, but can also start their own businesses by establishing their own e-commerce sites.
To help with economic growth and increasing the hiring of employees, the Malaysian Government has provided training for new hires and retrenched workers. Especially for new hires, the PENJANA KERJAYA initiative will help employers to upskill their employees with new training while also receiving monthly hiring incentives from the government. Meanwhile, EIS PERKESO also gives a new breath to employees who were under the category of loss of employment (LOE) such as retrenchment. People under this category can apply for Job Search Allowance while waiting to secure a new job, and also various training to upskill and reskill themselves. By upskilling themselves with the latest skills, they position themselves in a better place in the competitive job market. At present, digital skills are highly important for all workforce as businesses moved online. Specifically, digital marketing training will help the participants to have a better understanding of Digital Marketing and all the processes. For example, participants will learn how to create brand awareness, use social media to grow their business, and execute digital marketing campaigns. In summary, it is no doubt that upskilling and reskilling yourself will benefit you greatly in your chances of getting hired.
Note: Ommtech Digital Marketing Academy is also one of the training providers under the Training Programme organized by PERKESO under the PENJANA KERJAYA scheme. We are currently organizing Intermediate Digital Marketing Training specifically for retrenched workers. For more enquiry, reach us out at 016-2024852 or visit our page:
