Unemployment and Skills

DEFINITION OF UNEMPLOYMENT

Unemployment means number of people who are not in work, but who are available for and actively seeking work. Which mean they are fully qualified for the job they are looking for but due to a countries economy status they might not have a job.

ISSUES ON UNEMPLOYMENT AMONG MALAYSIAN GRADUATES

In this challenging world, competition is everywhere. Individual works hard to equip themselves with knowledge and skills to avoid being left far behind and survive. Obtaining a degree from institute of higher education in local or overseas has become necessary in order to get a good job with nice salary. However, a quite alarming issue is a high unemployment rate among graduate in this country. Many factors have been identified as being the causes for the increase in the unemployment rate among university graduates. Having straight “A’s” is no longer enough to secure a job or to give one a competitive edge in career advancement.

These are the issues on unemployment among Malaysian graduates:

1. Lack of social and communication skill in addition to a poor command of language and low level of confidence. Many graduates had achieved excellent academic results but could not secure employment without the relevant skills required in the labour market.

2. The lack of experience and skills are the causes leading to the unemployment of graduate’s. In Malaysia, the private sector today is not interested in recruiting local graduates because they lack several important skills, such as the capacity to communicate well in English, a lack of ICT proficiency, and a lack of interpersonal skills.

3. Another issue that contributes to unemployment is inability to solve problem efficiently. This is tied to skills - without skills, you have nothing to apply to solve a problem efficiently. This can be linked to the simple example of partial fractions. If you have the skills, you can dissect a fraction into its partial fraction quickly. Without, and you spend time dividing, which takes more time than a person with skills would have took.

4. Then the graduates themselves demand too much. The idea of a degree is contorted to such that a degree means good jobs, and that graduates deserve the jobs. Little do these group understand that while a person with degree in Engineering with First Class Honours may have the luxury of demanding a job (or they would be headhunted even before they start looking for a job), those who possess Pass with Merit aren't in that same bunch, and that sad to say, their degree is indeed of a lower quality than the First Class. This is made even worse with those who have these degrees, in addition to having little skills, start blaming companies for not hiring them.

5. The mismatch between qualification acquired and current job market demand also cause the unemployment among graduates. Colleges and higher learning institutions should make sure that their syllabuses were relevant to the present industrial needs. It was therefore very important for learning institutions to conduct some research on the actual needs of the various industries to prevent students from taking up irrelevant courses which in the end would lead to unemployment among graduates.

In conclusion the increasing unemployment rate among the graduates in Malaysia is a worrying trend. For many years, the issue cropped up again and again, made the news headlines, and even hit the parliament. The days have passed when a degree scroll can become your automatic passport to employment. Higher education is no longer a symbol of career success. This may sound painful for graduates but let’s face it. It is reality, no matter how harsh it may appear.

WAYS TO IMPROVE GRADUATE EMPLOYABILITY

According to Dacre Pool & Sewell, 2007 “employability is having of skills, knowledge, understanding and personal attribute that make a person more likely to choose and secure occupations in which they can be satisfied and successful” and Yorke, 2006 “A set of achievements of skills, understanding and personal attributes, that will make graduates more likely to gain employment and be successful in their chosen occupations which benefits themselves, the workforce, the community and the economy”.

Malaysia is a world class education system appears to have produced unemployable graduates with 90% of them are bumiputera. In 2010, about 30,000 graduates could not find a job six month after they graduate.

There are several ways to Improve Graduate employability; 1. Use of democratic instructional strategies (Singh&Singh,2008) such as role playing, simulations, problem solving exercises and case studies methods of promoting discussions among students and minimum the lectures class. By involve all the students in the class, it will make the class becomes lively. 2. To develop graduate skills and expertise such as in ICT proficiency are by working as temporary contract, doing an internship and other work experience. Both unpaid work experience and paid internship it’s a way to improve the important skills for the workplace and a stop-gap to avoid holes in jobseeker’ CVs whilst they are searching for permanent employment. 3. The implementation of the assessment of soft skills in public universities, such as in UPM there is a program for final year student called as finishing school that is compulsory to attend to before they graduate. These programs are providing a presentation in classes, encouraging problem-based learning and others. 4. Find out the most popular interview questions. There are some interview questions that will be used in most interviews. Use the internet to research common interview questions, and then develop clear, structured and intellectual answers. Next, practise the answers in front of a mirror, a friend or a family member to become confident in your answers.

5. Graduates must be ready. They have to find out which skills are currently required by employers. By reading up-to-date literature on what businesses are looking for in a person’s skill set, they can stay ahead of the game. The more information graduates gain, the easier they will satisfy the employers.

6. Graduates must expose themselves by pay a visit to a career centre. Career centres are designed to offer advice and direction for those who are seeking to gain employability skills. Once enrolled, you can begin a course which is specific to the skill you require.

In conclusion as an intellectual graduate, they must fully prepare mentally and physically towards the unforeseen future. Graduates have to be more creative about how they build their prospects after university. They must endeavour to develop their skills and make contacts wherever possible, and remain focused on exactly what will make them more employable for their chosen market. Job prospects are perhaps not as bleak as the world would have graduates think, but they must be prepared to rise to the challenge and prove themselves well-equipped for the world of work.