Malaysian graduates glum on job prospects

 Of the 200,000 fresh graduates churned out each year, one of every four university passouts is unable to find a job in six months, said Si.
He said 31.4 per cent of them are graduates who have completed their university education.
“Every six of 10 such graduates are aged 24 and below,” he said.
The job confidence index has since dropped to 38 per cent.
“Whether the recruitment market is strong or not, these job seekers are not confident in securing jobs. They think jobs are hard to find,” he said.
He said the job confidence index of seeking employment had dropped by 5 per cent from January to October. For the same period last year, the index was 43 per cent, he said when releasing the first JobStreet.com 2016/2017 Fresh Graduate Salary Guide.
He said in previous years, the job confidence index was capped at 50 per cent. This was based on survey carried out by Jobstreet.com from job seekers using the portal. Recently, the index dropped to 35 per cent.
During the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2008, the job confidence index was 33 per cent, mainly due to economic slowdown.
He said in the past 10 years, the unemployment rate had been lower than 3 per cent. In recent years, the unemployment rate exceeded 3 per cent.
“Few months ago the unemployment rate was 3.2 per cent. I believe it has reached 3.5 per cent now,” he said.
He said the unemployment rate was not significant as the recruitment market was normally active after Chinese New Year.
Si said the third quarter of 2016 job market survey discovered that 49 per cent of employers were willing to increase recruitment, 39 per cent remain unchanged while 12 per cent laid off staff.
He said the recruitment of the five main sectors had also dropped compared to the same period last year.
The recruitment of the manufacturing sector has dipped by 7 per cent, the financial sector 14 per cent, the construction sector 10 per cent, the retail sector 4 per cent, and the information technology sector remains unchanged.
Si said 51 per cent of unemployed fresh graduates came from public universities, 34 per cent from private institutions, 13 per cent from science and technology schools and 2 per cent from community colleges.
He also said that 64 per cent of employers did not have preference on whether the graduates were from universities in overseas, local public universities or private institutes of higher learning.
He said the main reasons fresh graduates were unable to secure jobs were unrealistic salary expectations (68 per cent), poor command of English (64 per cent), being selective about a job or a company (60 per cent), poor communication skills (60 per cent), and poor character, attitude and personality (59 per cent).
He said the survey found that employers placed an emphasis on the leadership skills of fresh graduates (39 per cent), followed by academic performance (25 per cent), extra-curricular activities (20per cent) and previous working experience (16 per cent).
Apart from launching the Fresh Graduate Salary Guide, Jobstreet.com also collaborated with Multi-Media University to set up an employment corner in the campus, preparing students with a series of workshops to enter job market.