Human Resource Management Challenges

Human Resource: Issues & Challenges, Prospects For Growth

Human Resource: Issues & Challenges, Prospects For Growth (By Anna Ong Cheng Imm)

(This paper had been presented into two parts in February & March Economic Briefing to the Penang State Government)

Introduction Human resource is the key issue for many developing as well as developed countries. Its availability, whether skilled or unskilled is a determining factor for the inflow of foreign direct investments (FDIs) to many developing nations. Human resource is also an important factor in determining the competitiveness of individual companies as well as a requirement for developing industrial clusters. Penang depended on its abundant supply of literate and trainable labour force to attract investments in the export-oriented electronics industry since the early ‘70s. This labour force has gone through skills upgrading and enhancement in the past three decades and today, Penang can boast of having a pool of relatively skilled and professional labour force that is capable of handling and developing state -of-the-art technologies. Penang has been identified as the top region for the electronics industry in Malaysia1 and is also well known as the Silicon Island of the East. Despite these accomplishments, human resource, which was and remains the key factor in driving Penang’s economic growth, continues to be a development issue in Penang. Issues & Challenges Issues The human resource issues discussed in this article mainly refer to the issues encountered by manufacturing e stablishments in Penang. These issues are more pertinent to Penang because the manufacturing sector is the largest contributor to the Penang economy, accounting for 46 per cent of the State’s GDP in 2000. Six major issues have been identified as follows: (i) Shortage of Skilled Personnel Although Penang has been identified as the top region for the electronics industry in Malaysia and is also commonly referred to as the Silicon Island,...