KUCHING: The Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development wants women to account for 60 per cent of the workforce in the next 10 years.
Citing data from the Department of Statistics, Minister Datuk Seri Nancy Shukri said they account for 56.2 per cent as of this year.
“For us to reach that goal, some of the main focus of our Ministry is to prepare an ecosystem that supports women to get involved in the economy such as providing financial assistance in order to help women entrepreneurs.
“We are also preparing access training and capacity development (upskilling and reskilling) such as the Penjanaan Pendapatan Wanita programme (WEJANA),” she said.
She said this at the closing of WEJANA at TEGAS Digital Village here on Wednesday (Sept 13).
According to Nancy the role of marketing skills and sales is imperative for businesses to succeed.
This is because she felt online businesses are preferred by women, especially housewives, to generate their own income.
“That being said, even though we have technologies such as courier service, online sales platforms which make it easy for them to conduct their business, these housewives need to be assisted in terms of training and funding,” she said.
On the WEJANA programme which started in 2022, she stated that it managed to increase the revenue of its participants by up to RM1,000 a month.
“Looking at its effectiveness last year, we decided to continue it in 2023 by adding several improvements alongside giving further focus towards the housewives.
“We are targeting housewives who are involved with the unpaid care work so that they generate their own revenue while performing their task as guardians,” she added.
A total of 30 women from Sarawak were chosen to participate in the WEJANA programme.
