Youths told not to be too dependent on govt for jobs
KUCHING: Young diploma and degree graduates are encouraged to take up entrepreneur studies or technical skills training in order to get a competitive advantage in the job market.
Minister of Human Resources said youths today should not be too dependent on the government for jobs, given there are already 1.6 million civil servants in the country.
However, the government was working hard to bring down the unemployment rate among youths, especially graduates, in the country by helping them to find jobs in the appropriate sectors, he added.
At the same time, he advised young graduates to also look beyond just being employed as they can also become entrepreneurs.
“That is why the government had asked local universities and colleges to include the syllabus whereby students, upon graduation, can also become entrepreneurs,” he told a press conference after a walkabout around the Job Fair at Urban Transformation Centre (UTC) here yesterday.
Riot said young academic graduates should also seriously consider taking up vocational skills training by participating in the Vocational and Technical Education Transformation (TVET).
He said the TVET programmes were aimed at providing technical and vocational education to youth at an affordable price, apart from offering a guarantee of employment upon completion of the course.
He also said although there are about 150,000 unemployed graduates in Malaysia now, the unemployment rate in the country, which is 3.5 per cent, was still manageable.
Riot stressed that Malaysia must have at least 35 per cent of its workforce highly-skilled in order for the country to become a developed nation.
He lamented that as at the end of last year only 31 per cent of the Malaysian workforce was highlyskilled compared to 28 percent in 2015.
“The government has set a target of having the proportion of highly-skilled workers at 35 per cent by 2020.
“To achieve the target, my ministry will strive to attract more youths to participate in TVET,” he said.
Riot said currently there were 1.8 million foreign workers in the country, down from 2.1 million previously, and the foreign workers were mostly labourers in 3D (dangerous, dirty and difficult) sectors, the jobs which were not taken up by Malaysians.
He said the foreign workers made up about 15 per cent of the total workforce in the country, which is still below the maximum of 17 per cent.
“We cannot have more than 17 per cent of our total workforce foreigners and we will make sure that we will not go above that,” he said.
Also present at the press conference were Ministry of Human Resources secretarygeneral Datuk Seri Adenan Abdul Rahman and state Labour Department director Jack Meredu Ko.
That is why the government had asked local universities and colleges to include the syllabus whereby students, upon graduation, can also become entrepreneurs. — Richard Riot, Minister of Human Resources