Interview on Astro Awani

I walked into the Astro Awani office at 7.40am. The personnel who was supposed to prep me and put on some make-up for me was already panicking : where is this guy !

I was Awani's first and only guest in their new season yesterday.

I arrived from the US on Sat, 14th and then went off to Singapore to spend the weekend with an uncle and aunt I have not seen for a while now. Got the sms about the interview on sunday afternoon. Arrived in KL on Sunday night and the next morning, off I went.

No time for jet-lag. The topic was about job losses and the Global crisis.

They wanted my view. I did not have any good news to share. Since the crisis began in end 2007, close to 5 million jobs are lost up to December 2008.

600,000 jobs are being lost every month since then.

More than 20 million jobs are lost in China and on an on I went giving the stats.

These jobs are NOT going to come back. My interviewers did not have anything to hold on when I made that statement.

"These jobs are gone forever". What can we do now is the question. The only way forward is the new F word : Be Flexible.

We talked about being flexible.

My interviewers - SangSuria and Zaiful - both intelligent and attractive asked what should policymakers do.

"They should change the employment laws - to make it easier for employers to fire !" Another controversial statement. I let it sink and then added " when they know its easy to fire, they will begin to hire"

We have to move to become better knowledge workers. Government should look at not taxing the small entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneurship should be encouraged. When the forest is on fire and when the old is dead, the new has to be born. These are entrepreneurs.

We talked about entrepreneurship and why the time for entrepreneurship is NOW.

My compere asked, how do we remove fear of the venture or the unknown? Knowledge is the best cure for fear.

I took the opportunity to announce the launch of FastTrac - an entrepreneurship program by the Kauffman Foundation. WG will be launching this program soon...

Stay tuned. The excitement is building on !