Employers’ perception on important employability skills in the manufacturing industry

Abstract

Employability skills are among the important soft skills that should be acquired by employees in the industrial sector today. Unfortunately, Malaysian graduates do face obstacles when looking for employment upon graduation due to the absence of employability skills among them. The main aim of this study is to identify employers' perceptions of the most important employability skills in the manufacturing industry. The study is also aimed to determine the differences between the important employability skills from the perspective of employers based on their gender, their company's size, and types of companies in the manufacturing industry. In this study, a total of 182 employers from the manufacturing industry in Batu Pahat were chosen randomly. Questionnaires were administered to the employers. The data generated were statistically analysed using descriptive and inferential analyses. The analysis shows that employers' perception of the most important employability skills in manufacturing industry is communication skills. The independent variables chosen are gender, company size, and types of manufacturing sector, while the dependent variable is the perceptions of important employability skills in the manufacturing industry. Results show that the perceptions of important employability skills in the manufacturing industry have no significant difference according to employers' gender and type of manufacturing sector, but there is a significant difference for company size. This quantitative study provides key insights that enable future employees to have more understanding of the employment demand in the manufacturing industry nowadays and for employees to develop their employability skills before getting ready to enter the labour market.

Perspectives of Asian Employers on Graduates' Soft Skills: A Systematic Review

“…Table 3 classifies reviewed journal articles by country of origin. Among the 21 journal articles considered in this systematic review, Malaysia had the largest number of published journal articles with a total of 12 studies (Siti Zaidah et al, 2019;Erlane et al, 2018;Shiau et al, 2018;Ting et al, 2017;Rohani et al, 2016;Amar Hisham et al, 2016;Kahirol et al, 2016;Mohd Shamsuri & Izaidin, 2014;Mohd Shamsuri et al, 2013;Sivapalan et al, 2012;Kalaivani et al, 2012;Rahmah et al, 2011). This followed by three studies concentrated on employers' perspective in India (Radhakrishnan & Sudha, 2015;Dhiman, 2012;Wickramasinghe & Perera, 2010), two studies focused on Taiwan employers' perspective (Tsai, 2017;Lin et al, 2010), one study concentrated on employers' perspective in Hong Kong (Pang et al, 2019), one study focused on Israel employers' perspective (Lavy & Rashkovits, 2019), one study concentrated on employers' perspective in Saudi (Khan, 2018) and one study focused on Pakistan employers' perspective (Abbasi et al, 2018).…”

“…Some critics contend that graduates from higher education institutions are unable to meet the employers' expectations and relevant job requirements in today's ever changing economic environment (Kahirol et al, 2016;Rohani et al, 2016;Kalaivani et al, 2012;Rahmah et al, 2011;Salina et al, 2011a;Salina et al, 2011b). Employers nowadays are seeking those who have both the appropriate academic qualifications and are highly skilled who are able to compete successfully in the market (Shiau et al, 2018;Kalaivani et al, 2012;Rahmah et al, 2011;Salina et al, 2011a;Salina et al, 2011b). Many graduates do not have the right combination of excellent academic qualifications and highly skilled as required by employers.…”

“…Other than that, some of the studies focused on the specific institutions (Jeong & Sung, 2019;Kalaivani et al, 2012) or specific regions (Khan, 2018;Triyono et al, 2018;Ting et al, 2017;Kahirol et al, 2016;Jackson & Chapman, 2012;Rahmah et al, 2011;Roselina, 2009;Andrews & Higson, 2008). While some of the studies only highlighted the graduates' soft skills in specific sectors such as industry (Khan, 2018;Kahirol et al, 2016), manufacturing (Shiau et al, 2018), banking (Abbasi et al, 2018) and service (Rahmah et al, 2011). Focusing on a few aspects of the issue creates a limitation in the interpretation and application of these studies across multiple organisations and regions.…”

Model of essential employability skills framework for machine operator

“…Facts show that many school graduates do not have employability skills in the workplace (Wei Chan et al, 2018). Operators tend to find it difficult to manage time, be less responsible, and not have a positive attitude to sustainable learning.…”

Employability Skills of Vocational High School Expertise Mechanical Engineering at Surakarta City

“…Non-technical abilities include communication skills, leadership, teamwork, mastery of information technology, management skills and problem-solving. The non-technical abilities mentioned above from the perception of manufacturing industry employees in Malaysia states that communication skills are important to master [10].…”