25,000 MAF Veterans Get Second Career - Adly

BATU KAWAN, May 27 (Bernama) -- A total of 25,000 Malaysian Armed Forces (MAF) veterans now have second employment after they completed Transition Training under the Armed Forces Veterans Affairs Corporation (Perhebat) to ensure a better future and life.

Deputy Defence Minister Adly Zahari said that 70 per cent of the veterans are involved in entrepreneurship, while the rest are in various other fields.

"We think that entrepreneurship is not an easy field and has its challenges, but they have the capital when they receive financial reward from the government after completing their service.

"That's why we give them a choice and this is one of the options that we give, which is to get involved in jobs in the semiconductor and electronics (E&E) industries. Every year we have more than 5,000 soldiers who retire and we help them find jobs," he told reporters after holding an engagement session with participants of the MyWira Veterans Programme at Micron Memory Malaysia here today.

Also present were Talent Corporation Malaysia Berhad (TalentCorp) chief executive officer Thomas Mathew and Micron Memory vice president Ramu Iyer.

The MyWIRA Veterans Programme, which was launched in January 2024, is the result of a joint initiative between TalentCorp, a strategic agency and think tank under the Ministry of Human Resources (Kesuma) and Perhebat to help military veterans find jobs after they retire.

Commenting further, Adly said that the government is committed to ensuring that MAF veterans have a quality second career and that his party supports the MyWIRA Veteran Programme initiative, which opens up job opportunities for this group.

"The challenge for these veterans is quite big, because most of them are still young, that is, at the age of 40 they lose their jobs, even if they retire they lose half of their income while in terms of social, they have responsibilities for children and family in addition to housing and health obligations," he said.

In addition, he said that the Ministry of Defence also established cooperation with other ministries to be able to absorb military veterans to work in several segments of the government through certain areas of expertise, but it is quite limited.

"We must work with the Public Service Department to integrate MAF members, for example, we do take veterans in the National Service Training Programme because some of them become trainers.

"However, we are now looking at opportunities in the industry because we know that in the fields of the civil service, it is quite limited, but in the industry, especially those involving semiconductors and E&E, it is actually wider, so through TalentCorp, we are opening this space and I think with a little training and expertise, MAF veterans are ready to make their contribution in the industrial field," he said.

Overall, the programme at Micron Memory Malaysia has provided six months of training in technical and supervisory fields involving two cohorts, involving 133 candidates who were interviewed, thus proving the veterans' high commitment to continue contributing to the country in their new roles

-- BERNAMA