KUALA LUMPUR (May 3): There are still plenty of job opportunities in the market despite the current tough sentiment, says JobStreet.com's country manager for Malaysia and Singapore Chook Yuh Yng.

"There is tough sentiment amidst [the job market], but through our survey, we found that 84% of employers in the market are still willing to hire at the same rate or more," she said when speaking to reporters at JobStreet.com's Graduate Employability and Industrial Transformation Forum today.

Chook said that on a year-to-date basis, there has been a decline of 3% in number of job advertisement postings on JobStreet.com; however, there are still more than 27,000 advertisements posted, which Chook said denotes a positive factor for the market.

"Even though sentiment generally is tough [and has been on a decline], there are still a lot of job opportunities out there," she added.

Chook said the survey also found that 9% of employers plan to reduce their hiring numbers, while only 7% of overall employers are choosing to not hire new employees.

JobStreet.com, in collaboration with Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, organised the forum to address the role of graduate underemployment in the 21st century, as Malaysia currently has over 200,000 unemployed graduates in the country.

JobStreet.com also said the top factors for graduate unemployment are that graduates expect unrealistic salaries, are picky about the job or company, and have poor attitude, poor command of English or poor communication skills.

Deputy Minister of Higher Education Datuk Dr Mary Yap Kain Ching also attended the forum today.