Unemployed graduates in Malaysia

While the uproar over the BTN continues, let’s look at what happens to some of our university students after they graduate.

The following was the answer received by Selayang MP William Leong in Parliament recently:

In 2004, there were 4,594 unemployed graduates of whom 163 were Chinese, 207 were Indians and 4,060 were Malays;

In 2005, there were 2,413 unemployed graduates of whom 31 were Chinese, 70 were Indians and 2,186 were Malays;

In 2006, there were 56,750 unemployed graduates of whom 1,110 were Chinese, 1,346 were Indians and 50,594 were Malays.

In 2007, there were 56,322 unemployed graduates of whom 1,348 were Chinese, 1,401 were Indians and 49,075 were Malays.

In 2008 (as of June) there were 47,910 unemployed graduates of whom 1,403 Chinese, 1,569 Indians and 49,075 were Malays.

This more or less tallied with the 47,733 active graduate registrants on the Malaysian Labour Exchange in June 2008.

By March 2009, Najib was talking about 60,000 unemployed graduates. This was more or less in line with the 57,701 graduate registrants on the Exchange in March 2009.

By October 2009, we were looking at 81,046 active graduate registrants on the Labour Exchange.

Clearly, we have a problem with unemployed graduates; what more those with diploma and other certificates.

Either we are producing graduates with skills that can’t be used/knowledge that cannot earn them a living or the skills and knowledge they have are not up to employers’ expectations. Or maybe they are not taught how to be independent and self-sufficient and how to put their skills and knowledge to good use. Perhaps they are spoon-fed so much they don’t have the ability to think analytically. Or maybe they are not taught how to do independent research and inquiry either.

Check out how much it costs to re-train these graduates here.