A group of retrenched airline staff seeking upskilling courses to find a new job. — Picture courtesy of Genovasi University College
By MILAD HASSANDARVISH | Monday, 21 Dec 2020 | Malay Mail
PETALING JAYA, Dec 21 — The ugly consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic and the movement restrictions have pushed many salary earners out of their jobs. Among them are airline staff, after the industry was harshly hit by prolonged travel bans across the world in a bid to contain the spread of the infectious disease.
To help the affected employees get back to the workforce, Social Security Organisation (Socso) together with Genovasi University College in Petaling Jaya held a briefing session for about 50 retrenched airline staff at the university’s campus.
Divided into eight categories, Genovasi offers 13 courses from various fields to help the candidates improve their employability skills in their respective area of expertise. Azhar Ameir, who served AirAsia for almost 11 years as a compliance manager in the
security division is spending his last few days at the company after he voluntarily took part in the company’s retrenchment exercise.
He, however, praised the company for being fair to the staff and offering compensation accordingly.
The 45-year-old, who worked in the airline industry for about two decades, said he volunteered for retrenchment as he understood that times are hard for the industry, and also wanted to pursue his legal practice in a legal firm.
He had brought a group of retrenched qualified aviation security officers to sign up for the programme and learn additional skills before finding a new job. Azhar said – although the staff have been thoroughly trained by AirAsia while they were
working – any vocational training courses would be an advantage for them to find a better job or even join back AirAsia once the situation is back to normal.
He said the company assured retrenched staff that they may be rehired in better times. Socso employment of services officer Zulfiqar Morshidi, who briefed the candidates, said the employment insurance system was rolled out in 2018 to train retrenched employees under Socso and increase their chance of employability.
To date, Zulfiqar said there are 443 training providers and 6,187 available courses in 42 fields nationwide. Genovasi, which is one of the training providers, covers 13 courses in eight fields.
The fields are information and communications technology, retail, office management, logistics, human resource management, business management and entrepreneurship.
To complete the course, the candidates are required to attend five days of classes, available on-campus or online from 9am until 5pm.
The courses, which cost RM4,000 each, will be paid by Socso. Candidates will also receive RM100 attendance allowance per session, courtesy of Genovasi.