Malaysia Forum

Mark Chang, Jobstreet CEO, relates the paradox of massive youth unemployment, on one hand, and the many job-openings that are not being filled in the corporate world on the other. He attributes this to the expertise and talent gap between labor supply and demand. Fascinatingly, Mark explains that after five years of work, overseas graduates have a 15% higher average salary than local graduates; after ten years, the gap widens to 50%.

Mark argues that the structure of our (UK-inherited) education system does not really matter — and that the real problem is the questionable quality of lecturers and professors in our deteriorating university system, who are “not as good as they’re supposed to be.” Mark also explains that the miracle years of the 90s with its massive job creation will not be repeated in the near future, and that Malaysia cannot rely solely on being a manufacturing base in the long run due to more competitive places like China, India, and Vietnam. He projects that engineering and IT-related jobs will continue to be popular in the future.

Questions raised include the relevance of liberal arts and humanities degrees (as the talk was science-heavy) to future careers in Malaysia and a challenge against the importance of foreign direct investment (FDIs) in Malaysia. Another interesting point was a participant’s argument that other important (unaddressed) factors for the lack of creative-thinking and intellectualism (and subsequent employability) amongst Malaysian youth were repressive policies like the University and University Colleges Act (UUCA) — “which is why the forum is being held in Boston, and not in Petaling Jaya.”

Posted by andrewlza / NMF 2008