The real labour crisis is mismatch

FROM the news of more than 1,000 job seekers turning up for a semiconductor manufacturer’s recruitment drive in Melaka to fill up 500 vacancies with a starting salary of RM3,500 to parliamentary disclosures of retrenchments and vacancies, recent reports on Malaysia’s labour market have painted a confusing picture.

Amid this noise, one fact is now clear: we do not have a shortage of jobs but a persistent mismatch in job quality, wages and skills.

First, let us correct a widely misreported figure. The oft-cited 3.47 million manufacturing vacancies on PERKESO’s MYFutureJobs platform is a cumulative historical total of job advertisements posted over several years, not the number of currently unfilled positions.

As Human Resources Minister Datuk Seri R. Ramanan confirmed in Parliament on June 24, the active vacancies on the portal currently stand at 600,168 nationwide.

I commend the minister for providing this clarity.

However, these 600,000 vacancies tell only half the story.

The minister also revealed that out of 42,807 workers retrenched since January, only 13,999 (33%) successfully secured new employment through the portal.

If there are 600,000 jobs waiting, why are two-thirds of retrenched workers not taking them?

The answer lies in the expectation and skills gap. As economist Geoffrey Williams recently noted in a local daily, nearly 1.96 million graduates – over 35% of employed degree and diploma holders – are trapped in jobs below their qualification level.

These graduates are not unemployed; they are underemployed – forced to accept low-paying, low-skill roles simply to survive.

They will not rush to fill factory operator or technician positions unless the pay, working conditions and career pathways meet their threshold.

The government’s allocation of RM820mil for reskilling and upskilling programmes – PACE (Progressive Acceleration for Capability & Employability) and Jelajah AI MyMahir – is a welcome step.

But we must also address the demand side of the equation.

Employers cannot expect local talent to accept shift work and physically demanding roles for wages that have stagnated near the minimum.

Instead of panicking over a mythical millions-job gap, we must focus on upgrading job quality, expanding Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET), and ensuring our education system prepares graduates for the modern economy, whether in formal employment, the gig economy or entrepreneurship.

PHILLIP M. RAJOO

Seremban