Malaysia helping graduates find jobs
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A government agency formed to convince Malaysians living abroad to return home to live and work is now being tapped to improve the job skills of the country's perennially unemployed.
As the number of unemployed graduates continues to rise – to 44,000 last year, up from 43,000 in 2010 and 41,000 in 2009 – the agency, TalentCorp, has unveiled a pilot programme to help them help themselves.
Known as the Graduate Career Accelerated Programme (GCAP), it provides six weeks’ training by two private education centres, Scicom Education Group and MyPartners, for unemployed graduates with cumulative grade point averages of between 2.0 and 3.0.
After the training, these firms will help graduates find jobs in the services sector, including banks and multinational companies. TalentCorp chief executive officer Johan Merican said the six-week programme will be effective because employers are involved.
“With industry input provided by the partner-employers, it will enhance the industry relevance of these graduates,” he said.
Malaysia defines graduates as those with degrees awarded by about 50 public and private universities, as well as those with diplomas from 200 private colleges and polytechnics.
Some 150,000 people graduate from these institutions every year.
But for many of them, the euphoria of receiving a degree scroll is fast giving way to the frustrations of a long job search. Despite millions of ringgit poured into training programmes, the number of unemployed people is still rising.
The GCAP aims to ensure at least 75 per cent of graduates land jobs shortly after graduation. Last year, only about half of them found employment while the rest either pursued further studies or could not get jobs. The results are critical as the country needs a skilled workforce to move up the income ladder by the year 2020.
TalentCorp believes its programme will work as it comes with job placements.
“The uniqueness of the GCAP is the active participation of its partner-employers, which include small and medium-sized enterprises, government-linked companies and blue-chip multinational companies in industries such as telecommunications, tourism and finance,” said Merican.
