Human resources minister Steven Sim said according to TalentCorp’s findings, most of these jobs were from labour intensive industries, namely the wholesale and retail trade sector; global business services sector; and food manufacturing and services sector.

However, Sim sought to allay concerns that AI, digitalisation and the green economy would lead to employees losing their jobs, saying the report which will be made public in November, must not be viewed “cynically and negatively”.

He said while some jobs would diminish, it did not necessarily mean that people would be out of work.

“A sunset role can be an emerging role in another sector. The 600,000 employees could be reskilled and pivot to another sector,” he said at a media briefing here.

According to Sim, the first report, which took six months to prepare and was completed in September, focussed on 10 major economic sectors which contributed about RM933 billion or 60% of the total gross domestic product (GDP) in 2023.

He said there were four emerging jobs across the 10 sectors, namely AI engineers, data analysts, data scientists and sustainability coordinators.

Sim added that the study, which will be ongoing and provide regular updates, would look into the impact of AI and future trends, among others.

“We do this (report) so the government and industry can prepare ourselves and are not caught by surprise,” he said.

Sim added that the government’s move to aggressively embark on high-tech, high-value and high-growth sectors, led to recent investments by tech giants like Google and Microsoft.

“So this first report provides a roadmap as to how these trends would impact jobs,” he said.