A chain of posts since February 25, 2017 by The Head of Parliamentary Affairs Office of the Opposition Leader Parliament of Malaysia, Abdul Malek Hussin, consists of concrete statistics and his personal two cents regarding the unemployment among fresh graduates and the unstable economic state of the country has somehow become a continuity to my previous article, Attitude: What The Doctor Has To Say that was published on February 17.
One of Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad’s thoughts that I have summarized in the article, as he shares them during the three-minute behind-the-scenes video, were about how the existing youth today should learn to struggle and strive without demands according to the situation we are in, regardless of how high our educational qualifications and skills are. But referring to Abdul Malek Hussin’s tweet, he seems to look at this issue in a different angle.
“The number of employments has now increased to 512,000, and most of them are graduates. They are sneered because it is told that graduates are too choosy on choosing jobs. Since when the mission of public universities is to produce cement mixers and maids?”
But Abdul Malek Hussin didn’t act like a keyboard warrior and end his statements there. He proved his points and included statistics on employment declines, bankruptcy, increase in consumer price index and more in his next posts. He even mentioned the hiring freeze for civil servants since 2015 by The Public Services Departments has contributed to the unemployment hike and suggested that civil servants that are eligible to retire should be retired and hire new workers.
Many youths reacted by agreeing to his posts and spoke up on their difficulties in seeking for jobs mainly because companies nowadays are looking for experienced staff. They were rejected everywhere, including career fairs that were supposed to be their jackpots as fresh graduates to have a new start. They expressed their discontent because companies shouldn’t expect them to have 5-10 years of working experience as they had only taken off their graduation robes.
Abdul Malek Hussin’s posts is an eye opener for me as I have been reading articles and opinions on how demanding graduates are and personally supported people’s preaches to them to just ‘deal with it’ and move on, but there is more beneath the line. Just imagine the struggle to pass and score the papers to reach the required pointer for you to graduate and hoping that you can finally support your family and your own self, but in the end, all of the hard work are not even peeked by companies when they look at your qualifications on your degree scroll.
Yes, we can tell them to start a business instead of waiting for a rain of gold to fall from the sky, but how can you start without a capital? It’s true that there are the lucky ones that applied and received incentives from non-government organizations and supported by their well-off family, or have certain profitable skills to sell but what about the less fortunate ones? Who doesn’t know where to cry for help? Who doesn’t know where to start?
All these overthinking has made my perspective changed on seeing this issue, and please, take all these blames off every graduates’ shoulders. They have tried to survive as much as we all do.
As a manner to conclude, everyone; the government, corporate companies, education institutions-all of us, has a fair share of playing a part to heal this issue. No one is supposed to carry a bigger burden on his shoulders.
With that, I end this debate. Here, here.
