More than one-third of graduates who started with jobs that did not match their qualifications have remained in that situation over time, according to the Khazanah Research Institute (KRI).
Its latest research report titled “Shifting Tides: Charting Career Progression of Malaysia's Skilled Talents” based on a newly conducted survey tracked the career progression of graduates.
The report said that about 60 percent of graduates have been employed in high-skilled occupations throughout the past decade.
However, this means that with the growing supply of tertiary-educated talents and an increasingly competitive job market, skill-related underemployment and low pay remain prevalent for around 40 percent of experienced graduates regardless of working years, the survey found.
In terms of starting pay, the share of degree holders earning RM2,000 and below also decreased significantly from 63.3 percent in 2010 to 43.2 percent in 2022.
Diploma holders starting at RM2,000 and below dropped from 93.7 percent to 78 percent during the same period.
“Since starting one’s career on the wrong foot could have enduring effects on future career trajectory, ‘last-mile’ active labour market initiatives are important to facilitate the education-to-work transition.
“This could ultimately overcome the underutilisation of skilled talents in driving the nation’s development and maximise the return to higher education,” said lead report author Hawati Abdul Hamid.
The report also iterates that graduate employability issues are not solely a supply-side problem, as limited vacancies in high-skilled occupations due to sluggish high-skilled job creation in the past decade signalled a deeper structural issue within the labour market.
Research method
The report is part of KRI’s research conducted in collaboration with the Higher Education Ministry.
The research utilises data from the ministry’s Graduate Tracer Study (GTS) and KRI’s Graduate Career Tracking Survey (GCTS), involving graduates from local higher education institutions.
According to KRI, the GCTS expands on the ministry’s GTS by delving further into various graduate employment outcomes across cohorts.
The GCTS employs an online data collection method between May and July 2023.
An email invite was sent to selected graduates by drawing samples from the GTS database and this was followed by a two-stage stratified sampling design to ensure a representative and diverse sample of graduates.
The graduate population was then divided based on three main criteria namely cohort years, qualification levels (diploma and degree) and gender. - Mkini
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.