Malaysia Unemployment Rate Essay

An unemployed person is one who is able and willing to work yet is unable to find a job. Unemployment rate is the number of people officially unemployed divided by the labor force. Official unemployment measures those over the age of 16 who are able for employment, but are unable to obtain a job. The labor force is the number of people over the age of 16 who are either employed or unemployed. In year 2005, unemployment rate in Malaysia (3.0%) higher than unemployment rate in Cambodia (2.5%). Malaysia is a heaven for job seekers who are not so particular on what job is available. As long as there is a job, they will just take it. The fact is true for foreigners especially from Indonesia, Philippines, Bangladesh, China and many more. With their presence, the field of job market in Malaysia is becoming more competitive. This is because employers prefer to hire these foreigner rather than Malaysian due to the relatively cheaper labor cost and easier to manage. That is why graduate Malaysian who is having straight A’s is no longer to secure a job or to give one a competitive edge in career advancement. Unemployment rate in Malaysia increases to 3.6 % while Cambodia remains the same which is 2.5% in year 2006. Another contributing factor of higher unemployment rate in Malaysia is due to job matching. Even though there is over 300 thousand of graduate Malaysian from university or college entering the job market in 2006, the competency of these graduates is still a concern where their qualification and experiences cannot directly match the needs of the employers. Graduate might choosing the wrong course or with the poor result. Nowadays, the employer will hire the worker who had a lot of experienced one. In Malaysia, the private sector today is not interested in recruiting local graduates because they lack of essential skills, such as proficiency in English, a lack of ICT proficiency and interpersonal skill. This leads to appears to be gaps between what employers require and what skills graduates have. Graduates themselves have to realize that they need to adapt to the needs and wants of their future employers. In year 2007, the unemployment rate in Cambodia still remains constant which is 2.5%. Unemployment rate in Malaysia had decreased to 3.5%. The unemployment rate in Cambodia does not decrease and remains constant in three years started from 2005 until 2007. The first cause is poverty. Most of the Cambodia citizens are poor, that is why they cannot send their children to school. Children will be lack of knowledge, skills and qualification. As a result, it will be difficult for them to find a job. Besides, with the poor quality of education system in Cambodia, schools can produce only non-quality human resources. With the limited number of university, there is no guarantee that all graduated students will find job which relevant to them because only people with quality are selected to work. The unemployment rate in Cambodia is 3.5% in year 2008 is greater than in Malaysia, 3.2%. The unemployment rate in Cambodia suddenly increased 1.0% from year 2007 to 2008. This happened due to the job opportunity. Since Cambodia is small and poor, it is not good enough to attract foreign investor. In this case, only small numbers of job opportunities are available for the rest of population. Moreover, this cause might due to lack of encouragement from government in the investment climate. In addition, the development of technology is another reason why unemployment rate in Cambodia increased. With the advantages of using machinery in their factory, some owners have dismissed their workers. Therefore, many people suddenly lose their job. This helps nothing but to increase unemployment rate higher and higher. In year 2009, the unemployment rate in Cambodia remains the same as the year of 2008, 3.5% while there is an increase in Malaysia unemployment rate which is 3.3%. Even though there are many job opportunities in Malaysia, the unemployment rate among Malaysian are increases. Obviously the reason contributing this factor is due to the world economy meltdown. Malaysia is a developing country which fully relies on foreign direct investment (FDI) especially from countries such as Americas, Japan and Europe. Most of these FDI are into the manufacturing sector. Many major multinational companies (MNC) in Malaysia have announced layoff plans including factory and office shutdowns to mitigate the impact of the economic slowdown. With the presence of manufacturing of MNC in Malaysia are significant, the layoff plans contributed to the increase of the unemployment rate.