Mismatch of skill sets a factor to youth unemployment

YOUTH unemployment remains one of the more pressing economic issues, with one of the factors being the mismatch of skill sets as posited by the Economic Outlook 2019.

Many vacancies in the market are in low and semi-skilled jobs which are less preferred and not suitable for fresh graduates,

Out of the 1.4 million job vacancies in 2017, 86.9% comprised low-skilled jobs that require only primary education followed by 8.4% in semi-skilled jobs, the report said.

This has led to a disparity in the employment rate for youths, specifically due to a mismatch in skills.

This implies that experience is an important indicator of employability, it read.

According to the report, a survey conducted by the World Bank and Talent Corporation in 2014 found that 90% of companies believe that university graduates should have more industrial training by the time they graduate.

This study also indicates that “less than 10% of companies had experience in developing curricula or programmes with universities”.

The issue seems to stem from both sides, and the government has implemented several measures to encourage companies to assist graduates.

Currently, 539 companies including the Maybank group, CIMB, Axiata, Celcom, Huawei and Intel are working closely with the Education Ministry to improve graduate employability, the report said.

It would also seem that education level and ethnicity have an inverse relationship when it comes to the Malaysian economy.

The report listed that in terms of educational attainment, bumiputra with tertiary education reported a higher unemployment rate (4.6%) while non-bumiputra with no formal education recorded a higher unemployment rate.

The unemployment rate differs across gender, ethnicity, age cohort, and education level, it said.

As for non-Malaysians, this demographic make up 10.3% of the 32 million total population.

The total unemployment rate for this group was 1.7%, the same for both genders.

As for gender, it was found that women, particularly bumiputra and Indian women were exposed to a higher unemployment rate (4.2% and 4.9% respectively) compared to their male counterparts.

The government has suggested some interventions to address the issue, which includes, identifying skills needed for the industries, main streaming technical and vocational education and training along with reducing dependency on foreign workers and cultivating an entrepreneurship culture in Malaysia.