MUSTAPA Mohamed sounded the right alarm in his thoughtful comment in the New Straits Times dated June 18 entitled “An opportunity to prepare Malaysians for jobs of the future”.

This vital issue is indeed a major concern amongst all right thinking Malaysians. Their own jobs and especially that of their children and the future employment outlook and their wellbeing and welfare are all at stake.

It is therefore pertinent that the minister responsible for socio-economic planning in the Prime Minister’s Department shares his views and rich experience as a senior civil servant and former outstanding trade and industry minister with us, the public.

Having been his colleague in the Treasury many years ago, I can say with conviction that the minister is serious in his analysis and plans for the future.

What he has proposed is necessary but may not be sufficient to solve our unemployment and other socio economic problems, for now and the future. But I believe the minister has an open mind and will welcome and consider all relevant views for inclusion in his economic planning.    

Need Structural Changes

The estimated unemployment rate at 5% is worrisome, but it is possible that this high rate will  worsen unless we reform the economic structure more significantly, as follows:

1. The minister has rightly proposed that we should ramp up our digital agenda. But we must also raise our standards of proficiency in the English language to get better access to the knowledge in the English-language worldwide. Of course we could stick to the present practices, but we will lose out to other competing countries in trade and investment and academic excellence.

Already we are losing out in the Institute for Management Development World Competitiveness Ranking. We dropped 5 points from 22 to 27 in the ranking.

I would hope that the government sees the need to set up a committee to examine our shortfalls. They may show the structural weaknesses seeping into the system. We could send an expert team of our officials to see what it was in Singapore that we can learn and improve, as they were ranked number one.

2. The minister’s proposal to reduce foreign workers is laudable, but the estimate of just 2 million foreign workers may be too low if you include about another 2 million unregistered foreign workers. Furthermore the government has to review our wage structure to reward our skilled workers, those frontline workers doing the 3D jobs. If they can flock to Singapore to do the “dirty jobs”, surely they would be happier to work at home if given better pay.

3. Here again, the basic needs of our society must be met as a matter of high priority, as Covid-19 has revealed that poverty, hunger, and lack of housing, health and environmental protection are serious weaknesses in our economy. These fundamental economic rights and others have been denied to millions of Malaysians. Here we cannot miss the boat again, please.

4. Education quality has declined at many levels from school to universities. Our international scores have not been internationally competitive enough. This is because of the neglect of meritocracy where we want more quantity in education than quality. This has a severe bearing on unemployment.

Indeed as the minister points out that the management guru Peter Drucker has stated that “the ultimate resource in economic development is people”, but we have over the years driven away some of our best brains due to deprivation of opportunities to study and work here at home! It also attracts investment and jobs.

So we must ask ourselves, how we can create opportunities to create and find jobs at home?

Conclusion

The minister has done very well to stress the opportunities to revitalise, recognise, strengthen and future proof our economy.

“It’s a big task and some of his sound proposals would need much more structural changes for us sail more confidently into the open rough seas of severe competition. More has to be done to ensure that as the minister says: “Let’s not miss the boat.”

I would respectfully add that I hope Mustapa’s bold foresight is shared by other broad-minded leaders or we will be left behind on the sea shores, without much hope for more employment and greater progress!

* Ramon Navaratnam is Centre for Public Policy Studies chairman.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.