Ministry aims to cut youth unemployment rate to single digit
KUALA LUMPUR: The government aims to reduce Malaysia’s youth unemployment rate to a single digit from a record 10.8 per cent last year.
Youth and Sports Minister Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman said the ministry would come up with a plan at all levels to achieve the target.
“Job opportunities are very important and there should be a joint effort with all ministries to ensure that this unemployment issue can be handled well.
“This is because one of the things that we want to do is to reduce the unemployment rate to a single digit.
“If you look at other countries, they can do it and we should also be able to implement it better in terms of creating more quality jobs for young people,” he said after officiating the Securities Commission’s (SC) InvestSmart Fest 2018.
Last year, the youth unemployment rate hit a record high due to unemployment among fresh graduates, which increased by 9.6 per cent to around 204,000. This constituted 40.5 per cent of the country’s unemployment rate.
Vacancies for high-skilled jobs that fresh graduates seek, such as professionals and associate professionals, only accounted for 4.1 per cent of the job vacancies available last year.
Low-skilled jobs, on the other hand, made up 86.3 per cent of the country’s vacancies.
The InvestSmart Fest 2018, an investor education initiative by the SC, would be held until Oct 14. It was aimed at promoting awareness and knowledge on the Malaysian capital market.
Themed “Investing for a Sustainable Future”, the event would be showcasing the products of 45 financial organisations comprising capital market intermediaries, regulatory and other agencies under one roof.
Bursa Malaysia Bhd is the exclusive partner for this year’s event.
Other sponsors include Permodalan Nasional Bhd and the Federation of Investment Managers Malaysia.
In conjunction with InvestSmart Fest, the SC had also introduced an educational game called “Jump2Invest”, which could be downloaded via Google Play and the Apple Store.
The game will impart basic capital market knowledge to players as they build their portfolio of investments.