KUALA LUMPUR: Prior to the May 9 polls, one of the promises made by the Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition was to solve the problem of Malaysian youth unemployment.
PH promised youths jobs and higher wages, blaming a previous mismatch of expertise versus job offers in the market.
While the mismatch may be real, employers and even employees from various sectors disagree that a mismatch of expertise is the main cause of youths being unable to secure jobs after graduating. They blame the young people themselves.
One of the reasons why marketing manager Melinda Lim, 34, found it difficult to retain good marketing executives was her employees’ attitude towards work.
“Those youths whom I encounter are picky over what they want in a job, although the job description fits what they studied in university.
“Many of those I interviewed for jobs in event organising only want the glamorous parts of the job and are unwilling to deal with paperwork and other humdrum tasks.”
Lim, who works in an international cosmetics company said there are also those who do not know what they are looking for in a job.
“I call them in for an interview because I was impressed with their resume, but when I ask them what are they looking forward to in the position on offer, they give me a blank look and some even say they are not sure.
“How do they expect to be hired when they don’t have a vision of how they want to progress in their career?
“If employers hire these clueless fresh graduates, it won’t end well, as they show a lack of interest in the job which increases the risk of them quitting several months later or not being able to perform up to standards,” she said.
She added that perhaps companies that offer internship programmes needed to improve how they train youths.
“There is also a flaw in the internship programmes offered by many companies. They tend not to take interns seriously so the students are given office boy tasks like running errands, decorating the office, making coffee and so on.
“They are not given real responsibilities related to their field of studies, so others eventually opt not to take up internship programmes. This means that when they graduate they don’t have any idea of how the working world operates, and that is a deterrent to hiring for many companies,” she said.
ST Liew, 38, a project manager in a civil engineering firm, says that many young employees today simply do not take their jobs seriously.
“Some I have come across, take sick leave just to avoid work, and they don’t even bother informing their superiors.
“Others just don’t want to learn from mistakes. In our line of work, we require a lot of attention to detail which they are not good at. Sadly most of our junior staff can’t be bothered to practise the necessary self-improvement.
“This is also why most companies would rather hire senior positions than junior ones. The only reason we sometimes hire junior positions is because we want to cut costs. Otherwise we stick to senior roles, so that we won’t waste resources training fresh graduates,” she said.
When asked what is needed to ensure graduates are hired, Liew said prior exposure and training is crucial as it helps a future employee decide whether they want to pursue a career in a certain industry.
“When I took my industrial training programme, I learned a lot about my industry and that determined whether I wanted to look for a permanent job in that area.
“Such programmes also make it easier for your future employer as they will not have to train you from scratch. The basic knowledge you acquire during your industrial training helps a lot,” she said.
In 2017, youth unemployment was at its highest ever at 10.8%. Graduate unemployment constituted about 40.5% of total unemployment.
Demand for low-skill jobs continues to reign, which may leave the government falling short of its 35% skilled workforce target by 2020, according to Malaysian Industrial Development Finance research.
“From my experience with hiring new staff, especially youths, there isn’t a shortage of graduates, but they are not sure why they ventured into their chosen field of expertise,” said Liew.
She continued, “They only find out later that it isn’t something they really want to do. If they had made the effort to find out earlier, this would benefit everyone concerned.”
Economics graduate Leslie Chung, 25, said most of the job offers he received were only for management trainee positions.
“To even get just that, we had to go through several interviews and tests.
“One of the interviews I went for, they specifically said that they would only hire two out of the 400 who were shortlisted.
“I asked why they had such high demands of a management trainee.
“One of the recruiters told me that they wanted someone who will not leave after just two or three months on the job as this disrupts the workflow of the company. This happens often and they wanted to reduce the chances as much as possible in their company,” said Chung.
He admitted that many of his friends were unable to find a job immediately when they graduated because they were too fussy.
“It isn’t that there are no jobs, but most graduates are fussy. Some of them don’t understand that a fresh graduate cannot demand a high salary because they simply don’t have the expertise necessary for a senior position. Because of that, they reject job offers.
“The course which I studied qualified us for a wide range of jobs. I wanted to work as a market researcher, and so I was focused on finding companies looking for that. I found a job in one month. I think that was quite fast,” he said, dismissing complaints by youths today who claim they are unable to find jobs.
Afiq Ramli, 26, a junior auditor who has worked for a year in a middle tier accounting firm said there is a lack of planning among youths today.
“Some may come from wealthy backgrounds, so they don’t need to think twice before quitting their jobs.
“Most of us would look for a new job offer before quitting a current job, but more and more youths today don’t understand what is at risk.
“Our firm is currently hiring, but so far we haven’t received a single resume. From the feedback I gathered, graduates don’t want to work long hours. But that is what an auditor is required to do. So that is another reason why some say they can’t find jobs,” said Afiq.
He added that universities and colleges may need to start training students before they graduate and make industrial training compulsory.
“Our Australian interns have to fulfil six to nine months of industrial training before they graduate.
“I think that’s good, otherwise graduates come to the job market without understanding what they are required to do at work.
“I think the mentoring programme works very well too. Our mentors can help us look for the right job, one which meets not only our interests but also our capabilities. It certainly worked for me.
“Depending on interest alone is not enough. For example, I may be interested in painting, but do I have the talent and what it takes to turn that into a career?”
Employers are wishing that more job-seekers displayed such common sense. -FMT
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