small and medium thoughts: October 2007

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

The EU joins the hunt for skilled immigrants; where does that leave Malaysia now?

The European Union has now upped the ante in the global bid to attract skilled immigrants to its member countries. Under the new "blue card" system, skilled migrants such as IT professionals and hospital workers, will earn the renewable right to work and live anywhere in the bloc. Whether or not it obtains a unanimous vote for this system from its member states is another matter but it still points out the importance other countries place on brain gain and attracting talent.

Fast forward (or backward) to our beloved country and one wonders how long more the arcane equity restructuring policies can continue to hold. While other countries are busy competing to attract talent, our UMNO led government is hellbent on its NEP policies, causing investors and talent to think twice about coming here.

No doubt, the recent news of increase FDI might deceive these guys into thinking they might be justified in their race-based policies, but analysts are already saying that FDI overall has increased in 2006 and Malaysia's increase is slower than say Thailand or Singapore.

The more we continue with these blinkered equity policies, the further behind we lag.

Technorati: Malaysia, NEP, racial economics

Thursday, October 11, 2007

Skali: 400 companies to manage government websites

Remember the Skali story and how it has been awarded the contract to train unemployable ICT graduates to manage government websites? Well now there's been more development.

It appears now that the 8000 unemployable ICT graduates will now be invited to participate in a training program where they will be paid RM500 per month and after that should they show any aptitude, they will be recruited as apprentices where they will earn from RM1200 to RM4000 per month.

Provided they stay the course and show that they are worthy of further development, these apprentices will then undergo the entrepreneurship course where they will learn basic business and marketing skills. That could be 3 years after.

The goal?

"Aimi said that at the end of the contract period, more than 400 companies would be set up to take over the managing of the government websites. " (Star Intech, 5 Oct 2007).

So, do the math. According to Skali themselves, there are around 450 government websites.

Skali seems to think that an entire company needs to be set up to handle 1 website. Wow. Good business and entrepreneurship sense.

We all know how long a business can last with just one customer and one service don't we. And especially if that one customer is a government agency.

Technorati: Malaysia, Skali