Future Employability Skills Sets for Manufacturing Industries

Abstract

Employability skills are important skills that employers emphasis on graduates. Lack of these skills will cause the career development of an individual as well as the industry productivity. This study aim was to elicit views of 30 employers in the manufacturing industries on employability skills individuals in the workplace focusing on the future needs. This research used individual interviews with employers and discussions of focus group. A comprehensive, open-ended questionnaire used was developed after discussions with the panel of experts in the focus group. Findings from the interviews indicated that employers emphasis different levels of skills for different jobs. Employers need employees with strong interpersonal skills such as communication skill, problem solving skills, team work and entrepreneur skills which related to the context of working environment. Employers also suggest that project oriented and work process oriented is the best method to inculcate these skills.