Malaysia: Assessing green jobs potential and supporting skills development

The Green Jobs Malaysia project aims to raise the capacity of the government and social partners to have a clearer understanding of the prevalence of green jobs across the economy and to identify entry points for further green job creation. The project also has the objective to identify supply side gaps, for a better understanding of the impacts on the labour market of climate smart policies and the potential for gender responsive green jobs creation.

Through a comprehensive step-wise approach for research work on green jobs at the national level, a green jobs mapping study was completed in 2013, offering a better understanding of the prevalence and the characteristics of green jobs nationally across six sectors. The project also built a green expanded Social Accounting Matrix and Dynamic Social Accounting Matrix (DySAM), spanning 2000-2012 to provide an understanding of the linkages between environment/climate change-related policies and the labour market. Policy simulations have also been conducted focusing on green policy and employment.

The project has also taken a strong capacity development approach. Through various trainings, it has created a pool of national experts from government, social partners, academic and research institutions, capable of using and updating the Malaysia DySAM in future years. Project activities also promoted better compliance to national competency standards and national occupation skills standards related to green technology and occupations.

As a means of concluding the project, The International Workshop on Employment Implications of Environment & Climate Change-Related Measures and Policies: Crafting Malaysia’s Roadmap to a Green(er) Economy was organized on May 5-6, 2015 in Kuala Lumpur. Attended by key representatives of relevant agencies and organizations, policy makers and senior technical officers, as well as international experts, the International Workshop served as a critical basis for consensus on the roadmap to a job-rich, inclusive green(er) economy in Malaysia. The roadmap was developed based on the feedback received from the participants through an interactive process.