Unemployment in Malaysia

Graduates from all over Malaysia universities are having difficulties to find a

job in this country. This can be proven by the results of the past five years

unemployment rate in Malaysia since 2006 until 2010. Last year’s results shows that

3.5% of Malaysians do not have a job. Most of them are graduates from local

universities. Why is this happening? Are our graduates not qualified enough to work

in their own country? Or the graduates themselves are too choosy? What is the real

problem and what is the best solution? Does the government play their role to solve

this problem? How did they handle this problem?

The first factor is the economy. This is due to the changing of economic

structure. In the past, manufacturing was the strongest sector in Malaysia.

Nowadays, this sector has been replaced by service sector. Moreover, this sector is

the backbone of each sector exists in this country like invest sector, business sector

and public sector. As an example, if a person is interview for a job in a insurance

company, he must show his interpersonal skill, communication skill, wisdom,

maturity and his capability to contribute towards the company. Only then, he is hire

by the company. As you can see, the company really look up upon the characteristic

of a person because they believe a success company should have excellence

attitude employee. And that is what our graduates lack of.

Quality of education in a country also can be a factor towards up and down in

the unemployment of their citizen. I am not denying that our education system is one

of the finest educations in the world. The syllabus is fantastic. You can see the

increasing number of straight. There are a lot of students every year in SPM or

STPM. The question is, “is these academic achievements excel in the real working

world?” In our country we also have a lot of degree holder with first class honour. Are
all these satisfy the need in the working field? So, we can improve our education

quality by balancing practical and theory at the same level. This will make our

graduate not only “know” about it, but also “how” to do it.

The main factor contribute towards unemployment are from the job seekers

who are too choosy about their job. They say that they do not want to work in the

field that is not match to what they studied. They thought that it will be such a waste

to study but work on a job that has nothing to do with their study. I have an uncle

who study about Arts in Writing in Akademi Seni Kebangsaan(now known as

ASWARA). After he graduate, he quickly find a job. He do not want to waste time

and wasting his parents money. The first job he got is to be a room service in 4-star

hotel in Ampang area. He took the job since there is no job for Arts in Writing

graduate. His salary at that moment was RM500. After 5 years, his salary is

RM1400. This is an example of not a choosy job seeker. Yes, you study Writing Art,

but it is okay if you work in hospitality field even though you do not know anything

about it because you can always learn. Life is like that, you be too choosy, you will

get nothing.

What the government can do to reduce and vanish these jobless people. Give

them a job. But a lot of sector is using foreign worker. What can government do?

Send them back to their country and give the vacancy to our citizen. But we cannot

do this immediately. It will give trouble to a lot of people. Never mind. Reduce the

using of foreign workers slowly. Then, provide more training and education to the

unemployed. This could help them improve their skill and communication. They will

become more confident and employable.

Unemployment in Malaysia can be solve if there are cooperation from the

unemployed, the employer, and the government. By doing this, a lot of money we
can save. We do not have to hire foreign workers. No unemployed graduates will

exist and no unsatisfied employer.