ICSSEA 2011

ISC 2011

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Proceeding of the International Conference on Social Science, Economics and Art 2011
Hotel Equatorial Bangi-Putrajaya, Malaysia, 14 - 15 January 2011
ISBN 978-983-42366-5-6

Proceeding of the
International Conference on Social Science, Economics and Art

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2011

ISC 2011

Cutting Edge Sciences for Future Sustainability

Hotel Equatorial Bangi-Putrajaya, Malaysia, 14 - 15 January 2011

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Unemployment among Graduates: Study of Employers Perception on Graduates

Wei Sieng Lai
Faculty of Economics and Business, National University of Malaysia 43600, Bangi Selangor, Malaysia Tel.:+60389214416, E-mail: lai_weisieng@yahoo.com

Abstract This paper study on the issue of unemployment among graduates in Malaysia which is at a critical level. The aim of this study is to discover the perception of employers in private sector on graduates in Malaysia and look for the qualities of a graduate that an employer looking for. Besides, this paper also study the company needs for future graduates and suggest some measures that universities should take into consideration in order to meet the needs of employers. Keywords Unemployment, graduates, perception, employer.
TABLE II RESPONDENTS EMPLOYMENT STATUS ACCORDING TO FIELD OF STUDIES, GRADUATES OF 2009

I. INTRODUCTION The unemployment rate in Malaysia is in a quite small figure. According to statistics released by Department of Statistics Malaysia, the unemployment up to May 2010 was 3.3 per cents representing 385800 persons. The percentage is small but the number is big. Thus the number of unemployed workforce in Malaysia is still at critical state. Among this unemployed workforce, our interest is the unemployed graduates in this country. According to a report released by Ministry of Higher Education on the statistics of employment among graduates in 2009, out of 155278 graduates, 45% are employed, 18.4% further their studies, 2.2% improving their skills, 7.6% waiting for job placement and 26.7% are unemployed. The numbers of unemployed graduates are 42514 persons. The statistics are as shown below:
TABLE I RESPONDENTS EMPLOYMENT STATUS, GRADUATES OF 2009

Field

Literature and Social Sciences Science Technical Information and Communication Technology Education

Employment Status Employed Unemployed Numbers % Numbers % 28,779 43.5 19,035 28.8 8,260 20,154 5,468 44.1 45.5 47.5 5,398 13,252 3,147 28.8 29.9 26.5

7,118

50.3

682

4.8

TABLE III RESPONDENTS EMPLOYMENT STATUS ACCORDING TO LEVEL OF STUDIES, GRADUATES OF 2009

Level

Employment status Employed Further studies Improving skills Waiting for job placement Unemployed Total

Total Numbers 69,959 28,586 3,434 11,785 41,514 155,278

% 45.1 18.4 2.2 7.6 26.7 100

Ph.D Master Graduate Diploma Degree Further Diploma Diploma Certificate Professional

Employment Status Employed Unemployed Numbers % Numbers % 443 95.3 13 2.8 5,842 86.6 553 8.2 1,333 91.3 33 2.3 38,191 49.2 22,640 29.2 563 40.8 457 33.1 16,753 31.6 11,942 22.6 6,787 47.0 5,860 40.6 47 25.1 16 8.6

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Organized by Indonesian Students Association Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia

ALAYSIA
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TABLE IV WORKING SECTORS OF GRADUATES, GRADUATES OF 2009

Sector Government Statutory Bodies Multinational (Foreign) Local Private Self Business Others GLC NGO Total

Total Numbers 20,389 3,141 8,507 30,290 3,553 888 2,107 1,084 69,959

% 29.1 4.5 12.2 43.3 5.1 1.3 3.0 1.5 100

be enhanced for benefits of both parties. 7. Lecturers should have experiences in industry. 8. Employers should be involved in designing materials of the courses in institutes of higher education. There is also a statistic released by Ministry of Higher Education on the reasons of unemployment among graduates in 2009.
TABLE V REASONS OF UNEMPLOYMENT AMONG GRADUATES OF 2009

Reason Looking for jobs Jobs offered not suitable Responsibility on family Not confident to enter job market Chose to not working Not interested to work Want to rest Health problems Further studies Others Total

From the tables we can see that numbers of unemployed graduates are high. Percentage of unemployment among graduates from fields of Literature and Social Science, Science, Technical and Information and Communication Technology are almost identical. II. LITERATURE REVIEW According to a research done by National Higher Education Research Institute (IPPTN) on February 2003, the reasons why graduates unable to get a job are: 1. Graduates are weak in command of English language and communication skill in this language 2. Graduates have difficulty in communication and interpersonal relationship. 3. Graduates are not proactive and have no initiative and having difficulty in completing a task alone.

Total Numbers 29,807 915 835 30,290 179 164 1,189 171 6,923 1,060 41,514

% 71.8 2.2 2.0 43.3 0.4 0.4 2.9 0.4 16.7 2.6 100

From the statistics, it is obvious that majority of the unemployed graduates are looking for jobs but couldnt get one. Thus the issue arise here is the factors leading to the decrease in demand for these graduates. The general consensus among employers indicates that the main problem with graduates is they lack of the soft skills 4. Graduates having attitudes problem, too choosy in jobs, [1]. Employers nowadays are looking for graduates whose not cant work as a team, not willing to learn, selfish and demand only equipped with specific knowledge and skills but also possess the ability to be proactive enough in respond to for high salary. Some qualities and skills employer need from graduates are: problems. Employers in Malaysia are seeking for graduates with good achievement in academic and at the same time 1. Graduates field of study match the requirement of the possessing soft skills such as interpersonal skills, job. communication skills, problem solving skills, flexible and 2. Able to adapt themselves to the environment at work proper attitude [1]. and easy to be trained to meet the needs of industry and There were few surveys conducted by organizations such as company. Multimedia Development Corporation Malaysia and 3. Able to communicate in English besides having good JobStreet.com (2005). The results showed that the weaknesses result in academic. of graduates are communication skills, command of English 4. Possess general knowledge and public and social language, bad social etiquette, demand too much pay, degrees awareness. not relevant and too choosy. Thus it can be concluded that 5. Possess leadership skill and able to coordinate. graduates are unemployed because most of them lack of soft 6. Proactive and initiative. skills. 7. Able to work as a team. The aim of this research is to study the employers 8. Possess skills in ICT perception on graduates performance and employers needs Suggestions from employers for Institute of Higher for future graduates. Education are: III. RESEARCH OBJECTIVES 1. Students should be given freedom to choose course that they want. The main objectives of this research are: 2. Students should be encouraged to interact with other a. To study the perceptions of employers on graduates races to get more exposures on careers. performance. 3. Examination-oriented should be reduced to produce b. To identify employers needs for future graduates. open-minded graduates. c. To study the employers evaluation on university 4. Institutes of higher education should put more efforts graduates. on producing graduates with multi skills 5. More attention should be given to mathematics and ICT. 6. Relationship between universities and industries should

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VI. METHODOLOGY AND RESEARCH DESIGN The primary data was collected by distributing survey forms to employers in Selangor and Perak. The number of respondents was 50. The performance of graduates that were surveyed was as follows: Enpowering Field of Specialization Interpersonal and Communication Decision Making and Problem Solving Skill of ICT Leadership Team Player Work Planning Thinking Skill Value and Ethic Other Skill Language Proficiency A five point Likert scale was employed and the respondents were required to state the extent to which they strongly agreed by giving a score of 5 or giving score of 1 for strongly disagreed with the statements in the survey form. The survey forms was personally distributed to respondents and short interview were conducted at the same time. VII. FINDINGS The respondents of this research are at manager level including Human Resource Manager, Sales Manager, Development manager and Production Manager. Most of them possess more than 10 years of working experience in private sector. According to the perception of employers on graduates performance, graduates scored average on qualities as below: 1.Clear understanding in their field of study. 2.Able to apply their knowledge. 3.Able to adapt their knowledge with job requirement. 4.Able to adapt their field of study to current need and changes required. 5.Able to give proper and clear direction 6.Good command in communication in English (both writing and oral). 7.Good command in communication in Bahasa Melayu (both writing and oral). 8.Confident in conveying information 9.Able to give opinion clearly and convince others. 10.Gather the complete information before making a decision. 11.Consider other alternatives before making a decision. 12.Anticipate potential problem in the future. 13.Responsible upon action and decision that have been made. 14.Able to seek relevant information through the internet. 15.Good at word processing such as Microsoft Word. 16.Good at data processing such as Microsoft Excel. 17.Able to present information using audio visual such as Power Point. 18.Give encouragement to the employees and colleagues. 19.Encourage cooperation spirit within organization

20.Distribute work task well to employees. 21.Able to lead new ideas and practises. 22.Encourage cooperation within the organization. 23.Ensure goals of team work is clear and directional. 24.Give good ideas to the team work. 25.Contribute personal expertise to the team work. 26.Construct work target plan. 27.Evaluate achievements of work target. 28.Arrange priority on work activity/task. 29.Improve achievement of work target. 30.Propose new idea. 31.Make improvement and innovation in jobs. 32.Being responsive in giving ideas and new solutions. 33.Search for alternatives to improve organizational performance. 34.High control on own self mentally and physically. 35.Persistance and hardworking. 36.Obeying rules and regulations. 37.Being punctual. 38.Present ideas/reports. 39.Analitical thinking. 40.Critical thinking. 41.Innovationand computer literate. These results show that employers perception on graduates performance are not at the terrible level. Thus we can say that graduates are not having serious problems in possessing those qualities listed. On employers evaluation on university graduates, majority of the respondents disagree that current graduates are more trained compared to five years ago. Besides, most of the respondents disagree that new appointed graduate ready to work without guidance. From here we can say that on employers point of view, graduates nowadays are not well trained to be ready to work during their 3 or 4 years time at university. Furthermore, majority of the respondents agree that the training period needs for new appointed graduates are 3 to 6 months. This indicates that most of the graduates require more than 3 months for training. In the organization needs for future graduates, below are the criterions which are rated as important: 1.Field of study. 2.Communication skill. 3.English language proficiency. 4.Thinking Skill. 5.Decision making and problem solving skill 6.ICT skill. 7.Team player. 8.Work planning. 9.Value and ethic. 10.Self-confident. 11.Characteristic and attitude. 12.Leadership. 13.Personality. 14.Work experience. The criterions which are less important are as below: 1.Intelligence and public knowledge. 2.Degree from oversea. 3.Malay language proficiency.

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4.Good academic qualification. (CGPA: 3 and above) 5.Graduatess network/associations. Also from the survey, there are some suggestions from employers: 1.Graduates should have a good attitude and willing to work hard such as working under pressure, willing to work long hours and responsible. 2.Graduates must love what they are studying when they are still studying. They should have strong foundation of some technologies database knowledge. Besides that, the communication skill and working attitude are equally essential. 3.Graduates must be able to communicate their ideas to co-workers and expose themselves to alternatives and enrich their experience with various resources by adopting new technologies. VIII. DISCUSSION OF MAJOR FINDINGS The major finding of this research is that employers are looking for graduates with good soft skills. It is not the matter of academic results that causes the unemployment among graduates. Besides, employers perceptions on graduates, especially local graduates are quite satisfying. However, the results also shows that graduates are still unable to achieve excellent level in term of the soft skills required. Another major finding is the important of good command in English language especially in private sectors. Last but not least, lack training is also one of the weakness among university graduates. VIIII. SUGGESTION FOR INSTITUTE OF HIGHER EDUCATION Institute of higher education should build a long term relationship with employers in order to get the information on employers needs on graduates. Besides, employers can also be invited as consultant in designing materials of courses in university. Furthermore, the institute should also put more effort on designing ways that can improve all the soft skills needed among graduates. Technical skills especially knowledge in ICT is essential for graduates from all fields of study and they should be exposed with sufficient knowledge on ICT. Industry training is also another important ways to improve the qualities among graduates since working experience and training are also important for employer. The current industry training program should be revised to make it more effective. X. CONCLUSION The cooperation between institute of higher education and employers is the key for solving the issue of unemployment among graduates. Universities and industry should not be separated in this issue. Institute of higher education play a very important role in producing good quality workforce for industry while industry make full use of these products to become more competitive in the local and foreign market. As a result of this close relationship between the institute and

employers, the unemployment rate among graduates can be reduced and our economy will be better. References
[1] Gurvinder Kaur Gurcharan Singh, and Sharan Kaur Garib Singh, Malaysian Graduates Employability Skills UNITAR E-JOURNAL, vol. 4, no.1, Jan. 2008. (2010) The Department of Statistics Malaysia website. [Online]. Available: http://www.mohe.gov.my/web_statistik/satistik_2009. National Higher Education Research Institute, Research on Unemployment Among Graduates, Feb. 2003.

[2] [3]

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