Youth unemployment in Malaysia
Youth unemployment in Malaysia
Youth unemployment is the unemployment of young people. An unemployed person is defined as someone who does not have a job but is actively seeking work. In order to qualify as unemployed for official and statistical measurement, the individual must be without employment, willing and able to work, of the officially designated 'working age' and actively searching for a position. Youth unemployment rates tend to be higher than the adult rates in every country in the world. Now, it is also a major issue in Malaysia.
There are so many reasons for this issue. (1) Unemployment is a very important issue for every country, especially developing country. High unemployment means that labor resources are not being used efficiently. In consequence, full employment should be a major macroeconomic goal of government. This essential issue often being included in the government policy or agenda for parliament debate and discussion year after year. After a long period of discussion and debate, it seems no ultimate solution has been found to completely eliminate unemployment. Theoretically, industrial economies are cyclically sensitive as such when it expands, factors including employment, sales, prices and profits will rise. However, when it contracts, downturns are inevitable and significant (Nazaria, 2003). When our national economy is in recession, many firms and companies are close down, it will cause unemployment rate to increase. The financial crisis that started in mid 1997 has affected the Malaysian economy. The impact was evident with the economic growth measured in real GDP began to slow down and registered the first negative growth since 1985 of -7.4 per cent in 1998. Table 1 depicts real GDP growth, labor force and unemployment from 1996 -2003 (UKM Juru Perunding, 2002). The contraction in real GDP affected the labor market resulting in slower employment growth, increased in the unemployment rate and also retrenchment. Labor force registered negative growth of 2.1 per cent and employment declined by 2.8 per cent in 1998 compared to a positive growth of 4.9 and 4.6 per cent in 1996 and 1997, respectively. In the same year, unemployment, on the other hand, experienced a slight increase standing at 3.1 per cent.
(2) Global unemployment in 2018 is projected around 5.5%, slightly better than 2017’s reading of 5.6% on the back of a better global GDP outlook, with an expected growth of around 3.6% in 2018 from 3.3% in 2017. Looking at Malaysia, although headline unemployment is around 3.4% in 2017, the youth unemployment rate is over three times higher at around 10.8% in 2017. Among Asean countries, the youth unemployment rate is lowest in Singapore at 4.6%, followed by Thailand (5.9%), Vietnam (7%), Philippines (7.9%) and Indonesia (15.6%). In China, it is at 10.8% while India’s youth unemployment is at 10.5%. High youth unemployment is not new. A key reason is the slower hiring compared to the number of job seekers. The slower pace of hiring is due to cautious business sentiments and a moderate economic performance that restrains businesses from expanding their workforce. Unemployment among young people is one of the contentious political issues as well as a burden for people living through it. If left unchecked, it will result in serious long-term negative effects. The country will have a generation of economically marginalised youth and this can lead to negative and far-reaching consequences on the economy and social landscape. The alarming rise in youth unemployment and the equally disturbing high number of young people who still live in poverty despite having a job shows how difficult it is to reduce unemployment, unless strong efforts are being made to achieve sustainable economic growth. Wide disparities between young women and men, underpinning and giving rise to wider gaps during the transition to adulthood, need to be looked at seriously. The labour force participation rate for young men is around 53% compared to 37% for young women – representing a gap of 16 percentage points.
(3) Chart
(4) Now, let us explore the possible ways of surmounting the issue of unemployment in Malaysia. As I earlier stated, the government and her people must work together to ensure the success of this goal. This can be achieved by:
– Ensuring political stability.
– Encouraging entrepreneurship/ self-employment.
– Improving standard of education in the country.
– Providing access to basic education.
– Building more industries thereby creating more job opportunities.
– Reducing retirement age.
– launching empowerment programmes.
– Saying “no” to laziness and total dependency on the part of the led.
– Inculcating the spirit of creativity: we must all try to be creative and positively competitive (hardworking).
– Above all, we must be positive minded in our quest to stop unemployment in the country. Zero unemployment can be achieved only if we believe.
In addition to this, it is pertinent that all graduates, under-graduate and uneducated persons know this: everyone is aware of the corruption in Malaysia. The society is corrupt, the government is corrupt. Selfishness and greed has blinded the eyes of everyone that the only think of themselves and their families. No one is willing to invest where there is nothing to reap. Regards to this fact, I urge you all to take the bull by its horn. As the good book says in phil 2:12 “work out your salvation with trembling and fear.” In the same vein, I say to you “you must work out your salvation with hard- work and determination”. Napoleon Hill said “practical dreamers do not quit.” Take a look around, every successful man you see today were once dreamers and visionary men. People can learn from them. Unemployment is not an excuse to be a failure, learn to turn your actions into cash. Some persons continually wait for white-collar jobs and finally discover that they had wasted their ample time. Stop waiting for an opportunity, create an opportunity. You can start a small or medium enterprise. Let us take a look at some successful men all over the world. Most of these men and women are those who discovered themselves and invested their time, money, talents, resources and so on. Today, they are reaping the fruits of their labour. Most are known to be school drop-outs; some did not even go to school while some are educated and possess high intellectual values. These persons include : Henry ford, Bill gates, carlos slim, Mark Zuckerberg, Lionel Messi, Ben Carson and so on. These men were filled with passion and determination to make money, they created an enabling environment to invest their resources and their money worked for them and today; they are better placed and successful.
Now let me open your eyes to reality: Every year in Malaysia, more number of jobless graduates are released into the society. These graduates are expected to move into the world and earn a living. When the number of these graduates and probably, non-graduates are compared to the number of job opportunities in the country, you discover that there seem to be no hope. We have many jobless doctors, lawyers, pharmacists, engineers, biochemists, microbiologists and so on. Now tell me why a company must leave someone else just to hire you. Surely, you must give them every reason to believe you are the best candidate for the available job. So, what are you waiting for? We have millions of graduates but we lack skilled, wise, and smart graduates. You must try to gain more skills, develop and improve your knowledge and prove to everyone that you have something new and unique to contribute. Then and only then, can you call yourself a better job candidate.
Say ‘No’ to unemployment!
Say ‘No’ to poverty!
Say ‘No’ to depression and suffering!
In conclude, we can see that most of the people we surveyed from various ages, genders and occupations believe that the issue of unemployment is currently present in Malaysia. (5) However, most of the citizens of Malaysia is oblivious to the fact that the reason of unemployment are not caused only by the government but also the people of Malaysia. Besides the companies's high requirement and demand for their employees in Malaysia, the graduates and the unemployed people have equally high expectation for their jobs in terms of salary and the benefits of the company. Hence, a great deal of people would rather further their studies than settle for the lower salaries jobs. Graduates must eliminate the misconception that the higher their academic qualification, the higher the salary of their job since it is a very incorrect and false belief. The government should further reinforce and strengthen the efforts on eradicating the issue. Additionally, many find the government endeavor on eradicating the issue of employment is lacking. In order to regain the citizens' faith and confidence in the government, firm and stable plans should be executed by the government such as employment subsidies and reducing taxes.
Reference’s : (1) Essays, UK. (November 2013). Cause And Affect Of Unemployment In Malaysia Economics Essay. Retrieved from
(2) https://www.thestar.com.my/business/business-news/2018/08/06/young-and-jobless-in-malaysia/9
(3) https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/Malaysia/Youth_unemployment/
(5) http://economicsgroupassignment.blogspot.com/p/conclusion.html