KUALA LUMPUR (March 5): The Ministry of Human Resources (MOHR), through its agency Talent Corporation Malaysia (TalentCorp), has launched a new initiative called Wanita MyWIRA to boost the rate of workforce women participation to reach over 60%. 

As an agency entrusted with mobilising talent strategies, Wanita MyWIRA will serve as a platform for activities that empower women, while structuring all women empowerment programmes under TalentCorp’s supervision.  

The initiative was launched in conjunction with the celebration of TalentCorp’s International Women’s Day, which takes currently taking place from March 2 to March 9 this year.

Minister of Human Resources Steven Sim Chee Keong, in his speech during the initiative’s launch, said that TalentCorp has been mandated as an agency of MOHR to empower the country’s workforce, including enhancing initiatives that promote the value of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), which will help achieve the female labour force participation rate (FLFPR) goal.

“Given that we lack information and data on the women in the workforce who have stopped working, and vice versa, it is critical that we have accurate and detailed data to assist them,” Sim said.  

In addition, TalentCorp will be responsible to digitalise the career comeback programme that will facilitate tax incentives and build better data to advance women’s position and strengthen the cross-agency cooperation under the MOHR.  

The agency offers advocacy programmes such as the women industry network, flexible work arrangements (FWA) and support for work-life balance approaches, to help employers implement DEI ideals and engage working women and parents .

TalentCorp group chief executive officer (CEO) Thomas Mathew said that the agency will continue to promote women and latent talent who can help the Madani Economy achieve its goals.

“Under the Wanita MyWIRA initiative, we will leverage the MyNext platform for assessment and profiling tools to create a centralised database for the women workforce, as well as (promote) other initiatives such as the critical occupations list (MyCOL) and strengthen industry-academia collaboration (IAC) to support women initiatives as mandated by YB (Yang Berhormat) Minister (of Human Resources Steven Sim Chee Keong),” he said.