PM meets women reps at dialogue

PUTRAJAYA: Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak yesterday met women representatives in the workforce at a dialogue session organised by Talent Corporation Malaysia (TalentCorp).

The meeting, held at the Bangunan Perdana Putra, was to enable the prime minister to listen to the opinions and views of women who had returned to work under the Career Comeback programme.

Najib met senior representatives of companies that have taken steps to retain and facilitate the involvement of more women in the workforce, said TalentCorp in a statement.

Also present were representatives from BASF Asia-Pacific Service Centre, CIMB Group, IBM Malaysia, IHS Global (Malaysia), Intel Malaysia, PwC Malaysia, Sunway Group and UEM Group.

The statement also said the government had carried out various initiatives to ensure more women stay in the workforce and achieve its target of having more women in decisionmaking positions.

The participation rate of women in Malaysia’s workforce had increased from 46.8 per cent in 2010 to 54.1 per cent last year.

“Although this is less than the target of 55 per cent set for last year, the increase of 7.3 per cent in female labour participation rate had resulted in an increase of 750,000 women in the workforce,” said TalentCorp.

This is estimated to have contributed to an increase of 0.3 per cent to the gross domestic product. Bernama