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MSC a magnet for knowledge workers
Malaysia's MSC with 300 IT companies under its wing has eased entry requirements to lure an army of the world's brightest and smartest as a means to jumpstart the project. "The knowledge economy is going to thrive on the basis of the ability of a particular hub to gravitate the brains from all over the world, and allow for a good mix so that there will a high degree of exchange of ideas. We would like the MSC to become a mecca of knowledge workers," said Larry Valida, a senior manager at the Multimedia Development Corporation, the agency overseeing the development of the 750 sq km high-tech zone.
Valida defines a knowledge worker as someone with a basic degree and two years' working experience; or a Master degree holder in IT-related or multimedia-related disciplines; or someone without any paper qualification but has had five or more years of experience in IT or multimedia industries.
A knowledge worker is someone with a basic degree and two years' working experience; or a Master degree holder in IT-related or multimedia-related disciplines; or someone without any paper qualification but has had five or more years of experience in IT or multimedia industries.
MDC is projecting the MSC will require over 31,300 knowledge workers this year, and the figure will climb to 38,000 by 2001. As of March 31 this year, MDC facilitated the entry of 1,488 foreign knowledge workers involving 152 firms. Out of these, the bulk or 47.8 percent comprised Indian nationals.
Valida said MSC companies have also become a magnet for Filipinas, Singaporeans, Indonesians and various Europeans, Australians, New Zealanders, Japanese, and North Americans. He said the hires are coming in at two levels--those that have rare expertise and come on expatriate packages for short consultancy-type stints in multinationals, and those in the lower-tier as researchers, systems analysts, programmers and lecturers. He believed in the near future that knowledge workers traversing the world for new opportunities will have four main considerations: bandwidth, fun, cost of living and the ability to raise family in a safe environment.
"By the end of this decade the quality of life in the work place is going to be the single, crucial determinant on where the knowledge worker is located. Western countries do not have safety levels that we have here, where the crime rate is relatively low. Granted that pay scales are lower, but in the context of cost of living it's one of the best in the world. At the end of the day, it's what your money can buy," he said.
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