Research 2023

The youth underemployment1 situation in Malaysia has yet to garner the needed attention despite its concerning numbers. In 2021, there were 4.57 million employed graduates, where 2.9% were time-related underemployed2 while 33.9% were skill-related-underemployed3. Overall, the proportion of underemployed youth (% of total graduate workforce) has remained largely unchanged from 2017 to 2023 while nominal numbers show an uptrend, showing a need for reassessment of intervention strategies.
With underemployment among youth comes various other challenges, including a relatively low average salary for graduates. In fact, 28.7% of graduate placements in 2022 began with monthly earnings below RM1,999. Couple this with the lack of high-skilled job creation (only 12% of jobs created per annum from 2010 to 2019), there is little room for these graduates to experience both career and wage advancements. Additionally, the market of medium to low skill jobs become more concentrated as higher skilled graduates are pushed into these sectors, competing with lower skilled graduates hence further pressure to push down real wages.
What are the consequences of a delayed action to deal with this?

Malaysia’s 30-day visa-free policy for Chinese tourists has seen an increase in arrivals, but attracting and engaging this large market requires more than just an open door. Industry players need to understand Chinese travellers’ preferences and tailor experiences accordingly, considering cultural nuances and preferred digital platforms. Additionally, sustainable practices like eco-friendly tourism and community engagement can ensure that both tourists and locals benefit from the increased tourism activity.

The Kuala Lumpur-Singapore High-Speed Rail (HSR) project promised to be a shining beacon of progress, slashing travel time between the two nations and spurring economic growth. Yet, instead of gleaming tracks and swift carriages, what we have is a tangled mess of flip-flops, soaring costs, and a trail of wasted taxpayer money on the sheer extravagance of irresponsible policymaking and its heavy toll on the nation’s pocket.

Malaysia is a country blessed with relatively robust water reserves via a wide access to ample rainfall averaging 3,000mm annually and rich surface water resources such as rivers which provides approximately 97% of raw water used in agricultural, domestic and industrial sectors.1 Given this rich supply of liquid gold, one would expect that the mass population would receive uninterrupted access to clean water. However, the country has faced a myriad of water problems over the years which includes the ageing piping system, increasingly worrying pollution affecting our water sources and the rising non-revenue water (NRW) figures at national level.

The Pangkalan Data Utama (PADU), recently introduced by the Madani government aims to be a social safety net built on a vast database of personal information where Malaysian citizens above 18 years old regardless of their background would have to contributed to this massive collection of personal data to date. While the promise of targeted support is appealing, the Minister of Economy has yet to address several flaws prior to the grand launch on 2nd of January 2024.

Youths are supposed to be future tech-savvy leaders, bringing nations forward. Yet in Malaysia, we have nearly half a million young people who are jobless or at least that is what the number tells us. This is the harsh reality we face. From an economic perspective, the national unemployment rates may seem deceptively low at 3.4% but digging beneath the surface would unearth a brewing crisis.
As of October 2023, over 310,000 young Malaysians, aged 15-24 are unemployed with that number soaring to nearly 440,000 when we consider a wider youth scope, aged 15- 30.1 While some see them as mere numbers, we see faces. Over 187,000 graduates with hard-earned certifications could not find a job in 2022, pointing to a deeper problem in the system, suggesting a structural mismatch. This issue is only expected to get worse with number of graduates steadily increasing over the years where 5.92 million graduated last year.2 Is the government implementing enough initiatives beyond job fairs to effectively address this issue?