KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 21 — A total of 22,849 people have been trained through various development programmes for the semiconductor sector as of September, as part of an effort to produce 60,000 highly skilled engineers by 2030 under the National Semiconductor Strategy (NSS).
Investment, Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Seri Johari Abdul Ghani said higher education institutions and technical training providers implemented the programmes to meet the semiconductor industry's increasingly complex needs.
“This achievement demonstrates progress towards the 60,000 target. However, continued efforts are needed to ensure talent supply is not just sufficient in terms of numbers, but also meets the increasingly complex skills and expertise requirements of the industry,” he said during the question-and-answer session in the Dewan Rakyat today.
He was responding to a question from Yeo Bee Yin (Harapan-Puchong) on training 60,000 semiconductor workers under NSS, including their placement across subsectors and the local ecosystem’s talent retention rate.
Johari said talent development was being carried out in an integrated manner through the upskilling of the existing workforce, strengthening of technical and vocational training, and enhanced industry-academia collaboration.
Among the initiatives is the Engineering Talent for Semiconductor Industry programme, implemented via CREST in strategic collaboration with the Human Resource Development Corporation (HRD Corp). The programme focuses on workforce upskilling and retraining and improving graduates’ employability.
Training encompasses fields such as integrated circuit (IC) design, advanced packaging, wafer fabrication, embedded systems and automation processes to meet the needs of the semiconductor and electrical and electronics industries, he said.
He said the Higher Education Ministry is also strengthening university-industry collaboration, including an electronic engineering franchise programme with ViTrox, the development of an advanced electronic packaging syllabus with Intel, and a curriculum covering semiconductor assembly, testing, marking and packaging with Micron.
Meanwhile, the Labour Department is establishing the Human Resources Ministry (MOHR) Semiconductor Academy at Penang’s Malaysia-Japan Technical Institute to boost training capacity in IC design, IC fabrication and advanced IC packaging, he added.
On talent placement and retention, Johari said data on the breakdown by subsector and retention rates within the local ecosystem is not yet available.
“MITI is coordinating data collection with the Human Resources and Higher Education Ministries, implementing agencies, education institutions and industry players to determine the number of talents placed in each subsector and talent retention rate within the local ecosystem.
“The government acknowledges that the effectiveness of semiconductor talent development is not only measured by volume trained but also how successfully they are placed within the industry, skill alignment with employers’ needs, and the ability to retain talent within the local semiconductor ecosystem,” he said.
These measures are important to ensure investments in talent development translate into higher productivity and the growth of high-value activities in Malaysia, the ministry said.
