From the perspective of national development and in the context of the NEM, the nation needed capable manpower, especially high skilled workers, to mobilise the economy in all fields, he said.
Najib said Malaysia also needed a quantum shift in churning out between 35 and 50 per cent professional workers if it were to achieve the developed nation status and compete with other countries such as Taiwan, Korea and Singapore which already had more than 30 per cent of its workers in the professional field.
He said this when launching the Graduands' Career and Entrepreneurship Carnival (K3G), here today. The text of his speech was read by Higher Education Minister Datuk Mohamed Khaled Nordin.
Najib said that statistics showed that Malaysia had a worker population of 10.6 million, of whom eight million were under the 45 age group category, while two million were under the age of 25.
Out of the total of 10.6 million workers, only 2.8 million were in the professional and management group while the rest were in the low-skilled or general worker category.
The Prime Minister also called on all graduands to discard the 'wait or passive culture' and to face the real world.
Instead, he said, the graduands should be bold and creative in grabbing and exploring new job opportunities, particularly those available in the New Economic Model, based on knowledge.
Najib also said that the graduands should exploit the opportunities available in the institutions of higher learning and raise their work quality and skill so that they could adapt themselves to the changing environment where the economic dimension was becoming more challenging.
While calling on the graduands to sharpen their skills so that they were marketable not only locally but also abroad, the Prime Minister also reminded them to be patriotic and to serve their own country.
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