Alternative to shortage of local shore-based skilful workers in Malaysia

ABSTRACT Maritime industry in Malaysia is facing a perilous shortage of local shore-based skilful workers and has become the greatest challenge by means of the industry desires skilled manpower and expertise to boost up the development of this sector. The small number of local participation has urged the industry to employ foreigners to fulfil the positions required. This paper aims at examining the best alternative to cope with this issue. This study used expert’s opinions to rank the alternative to shortage of local shore-based skilful workers via Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) technique. The elements of ‘Spread Awareness’, ‘Manpower Management’, ‘Government Incentive and Support’, and ‘Training’ are weighted. Additionally, the preferences of more than one decision-maker are internally aggregated into the TOPSIS method. Based on the assessment by the TOPSIS method, this study demonstrates the importance of ‘Manpower Management’ that appears to be a very important influence as a dominant alternative to overcome the shortage of local shore-based skilful workers in Malaysia. Finally, some suggestions for improvement in future research are also provided.