THE number of unemployed graduates in Malaysia increased by 22.5% last year, the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM) said today.

This adds more than 37,200 persons with a degree or diploma but without a job to a total of 202,400 unemployed graduates.

Chief Statistician of Malaysia Mohd Uzir Mahidin said the increase was due to the unfavourable economy in 2020, and had affected mostly graduates aged 35 years and older.

“The unemployment rate for graduates for 2020 went up by 0.5% points to 4.4%, as against 3.9% in the preceding year.

“In addition, more than 75% of unemployed graduates were actively seeking work whereby almost half were unemployed for less than three months,” he said in a statement.

As for graduates who have jobs, Uzir said there were 1.36 million of them last year who were working in jobs that did not match their level of qualification.

This situation, called “skill-related underemployment”, applied to graduates employed in the semi-skilled and low-skilled categories, Uzir said.

In the semi-skilled category, there was slight growth in the employment of graduates from 25.6% in 2019 to 28.9% last year.

In the low-skilled category, 2.3% were employed graduates.

Overall, the rate at which graduates work in jobs that did not match their qualifications rose from 26.7% in 2019 to 31.2% last year.

“The situation was more pronounced among diploma graduates, which recorded a rate of 46.1%, while degree graduates posted 19.2% of skill-related underemployment rate.”

Uzir said the figures were corroborated by the lower number of total job vacancies in the economy last year.

“Skill-related underemployment, which has been a structural labour market issue with the rates hovering between 22% to 26% since the Graduate Statistics series began in 2016, escalated as the pandemic struck last year.”

In terms of economic sectors, over 75% of employed graduates worked in the services sector, followed by 14.6% in the manufacturing sector, last year.

Another 800,900 graduates were categorised as being outside the labour force due to housework and/or family commitments.

But their number declined by 5.1%, against growth of 6.3% in 2019.

“The larger decline was observed among females, especially in the category of housework/family responsibility and not interested/just completed study.”

However, more female graduates entered the labour force last year by 2.1% from the year before, putting women’s labour force participation rate at 82% in 2020.

The male labour force participation rate was 85% last year, higher by 1.5% from the previous year.

Uzir said the department recorded 5.36 million graduates last year, a high number achieved due to greater awareness about higher education over the years.

He acknowledged challenging labour market conditions, especially as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, and urged graduates to update and upgrade their skills and knowledge. – July 27, 2021.