The Rate of Unemployment in Malaysia

(Asmawati, 2009). However, producing human capital resources that are comprehensive and at a world classlevel is not an easy task and it is a challenge to Malaysia.Currently, unemployment among the graduates becomes an issue, not only in Malaysia but also around theworld. The Department of Statistics Malaysia (2011) found that the unemployment rate in Malaysia hadincreased from 3.2 % in 2007 to 3.7% in 2009. The Minister of Human Resources, Fong Chan Onn, stated thatthe National Economic Action Council with the collaboration of the Department of Human Manpower hadconducted a census in 2005 and it is found that 59000 graduates and diploma holders were unemployed and30000 graduates worked in a field that do not match with their higher educational qualifications.Based from resources of job vacancies and job placement in Peninsular Malaysia in 2012, it is revealed that job vacancies are increasing from year to year. However, these job vacancies are filled by only a part of theworkers. This shows that the unemployment issue is happened not because of the lack of job opportunitiesinstead it happens because of other factors such as the low quality of a graduate. Even though the unemploymentrate in Malaysia is considered low as compared to countries like the United States and other countries in Europe,it is not an issue to be neglected. This is because graduates are human workforce that is vital and become the corefor innovative and productive high-income economy. Therefore, this paper aims to identify primary factors thatlead to the unemployment issue among the Malaysian graduates and hence it can hopefully become guidelines incurbing this problem.
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Unemployment issue in Malaysia
Rahmah et al. (2011) mentioned that one of the factors that contribute to the unemployment problem amongthe Malaysian graduates is the quality of the graduates. There are employers in the industry, who gave negativecomments on the graduates and mentioned that the graduates do not have the