This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on July 12, 2019

KUALA LUMPUR: The government has introduced at least six measures to address youth unemployment, Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said.

Among them is the recruitment portal, JobsMalaysia, through which 3,890 jobseekers have gained employment between January and March this year.

Dr Mahathir said this in reply to Ma’mun Sulaiman (Warisan-Kalabakan) on the government’s efforts to reduce the youth unemployment rate, at the Dewan Rakyat sitting yesterday.

Ma’mun said based on the Labour Force Survey Report by the department of statistics, the youth unemployment rate was recorded at 10.9% in 2018.

“Among the factors identified to have contributed to youth unemployment in Malaysia were inadequate skills, qualifications and work experience, as well as unmatched skill sets,” he said during the Minister’s Question Time.

Dr Mahathir said the government had also set up a one-stop centre to provide professional consultation for jobseekers to secure jobs; created a Graduate Enhancement Programme for Employability to help unemployed graduates develop skills through training in high-impact fields; fine-tune and expand the apprentice and industrial training programmes; and empowered the National Dual Training System, which is aimed at addressing the shortfall in skills required by industries. Under the scheme, 70% of the training involves practical training in companies, and the rest of the training is theoretical in nature.

 The government has also set up centres with agencies such as JobsMalaysia, the Social Security Organisation, Pembangunan Sumber Malaysia Bhd and the Bumiputera Development Agenda Unit to prepare youths for the job market.

“[The government] is also implementing the Structured Internship Programme, which is spearheaded by TalentCorp and the education ministry,” said Dr Mahathir, who added that 76,000 university students and technical and vocational education and training students had benefited from the scheme.

“Among the other factors that are known to be a cause of youth unemployment in Malaysia is the lack of education, working experience and skills,” Dr Mahathir added.

He added that overall unemployment in 2018, which stood at 3.3%, was within the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) 1990 guidelines, which indicate economies with unemployment rates below 4% are in a state of full employment. In response to a supplementary question from Datuk Seri Ahmad Maslan (BN-Pontian) as to whether the government should introduce an entrepreneurship stream in secondary schools, Dr Mahathir said the government had already introduced entrepreneurship training in the various programmes it runs, and that it is up to jobseekers and the youth to seek appropriate training.