I refer to Human Resources Minister Datuk Seri M. Saravanan’s expectation that the unemployment rate is expected to drop to 4.5% as irrelevant.
I too have many expectations, but what good does that do for the Malaysian public when people are still losing jobs?
Expecting unemployment to go down without announcing major government policy change is utterly pointless. Perhaps the Minister can share these important numbers with us:
- How many people were employed under the Penjana HRDF program since its inception?
- How many new jobs were created this year so far, to combat the loss of jobs due to automation?
- What are the latest numbers of Underemployment in the country?
Underemployment, although important has been completely ignored by the current federal government.
Statistics don’t lie, there is high youth unemployment (40%) and underemployment (60%), where youth are working outside of their field of expertise and usually for a lower salary.
It is also ignorant to say that unemployment is going down when Saravanan’s fellow Cabinet member, the Higher Education Minister Noraini Ahmad said 75,000 out of 300,000 fresh graduates are projected to encounter some challenges in finding jobs within six months after graduation.
What is the immediate plan to address this problem plaguing our graduates as they become part of the Malaysian workforce?
Perhaps instead of an expectation that doesn’t mean much to the Malaysian public who are facing record numbers of unemployment and businesses shutting down, Saravanan should bring up dynamic and inclusive policies that will finally address unemployment and underemployment.
The Government has failed to address underemployment and the growing numbers of businesses closing because their attention has been focused elsewhere.
Lack of coordination between Ministries and their agencies has seen the numbers rise over the last few months and I disagree that the real numbers of unemployed Malaysians will go down.
This is why you will see data coming out of Perkeso, EPF and Institute of Labour Market Information and Analysis (ILMIA) to be different, so which one do we refer to?
Do not forget that EPF had previously conducted a study that revealed unemployment to reach 13% and 2.4 million people in Malaysia will be without a job.
Does Saravanan’s expectation mean that the EPF’s report was wrong?
Also we need the intense politicking inside the government and inside the Perikatan Nasional coalition to stop. The greedy jostling for positions and the demand for who gets to be the Deputy Prime Minister is coming at the worse time.
Can the PN government finally resolve its issues between its political parties and finally govern the country and immediately focus on unemployment, underemployment and reviving businesses that had to shut down?