1.0 Introduction
Unemployment occurs when a person is available to work and seeking work but currently without work. The prevalence of unemployment is usually measured using the unemployment rate, which is defined as the percentage of those in the labor force who are unemployed. Nearly 60,000 Malaysian graduates are unemployed, a government survey has revealed. It also confirmed what has long been known: Most of the unemployed are Malays from lower-income families who lack command of the English language. Also, their qualifications are mostly not in demand. These results emerged recently from a project initiated by the Economic Planning Unit of the Prime Minister's Department, where the unemployed were asked to sign up for jobs. The project was initiated to gauge the extent of the problem and to enable the government to fine-tune its job creation policies. As many as 59,250 graduates signed up, a New Straits Times report said. Many of the participants were Malays with degrees in business studies or information technology from public universities, where courses are taught in Malay. Earlier estimates had put the number of jobless in the country at between 18,000 and 82,000. The latest results also showed that 71 percent of the unemployed were female, 61 percent were from poor families, and 80 percent were educated with government loans from the National Higher Education Fund (PTPTN). Those surveyed cited the lack of job experience, poor command of the English language with inadequate communication skills, and the possession of qualifications that are not relevant to the job market as reasons for not being able to find suitable employment. “Most have been jobless for more than a year,” Malaysia’s Human Resources Minister Datuk Dr Fong Chan Onn was quoted as saying. The results have led to some introspection. There are concerns that there could be many more degree-holders on the list of 400,000 individuals who are currently unemployed. The results of the survey will also likely give a boost to the government's ongoing efforts to promote English usage in schools and to encourage Malays to take up relevant degree courses. "We have highly qualified graduates coming here who cannot construct a proper sentence in English. They lack confidence and it is not difficult to imagine why they are jobless," Geraldine Fernandes, the operator of a private college, told The Straits Times. Over the past two years, colleges and schools like the one run by her have been helping to retrain unemployed graduates to make them more marketable. The Human Resources Ministry had spent up to RM100 million (about C$31.3 million) during the past few years on such programs. A recent survey found that Universiti Malaya, the country's premier university, has slipped in the rankings. From being among the top 100 universities in the world, it is now ranked below 150. The government has taken steps to address falling standards in universities and schools, by gradually re-introducing the use of English in schools. The language is now being used to teach science and mathematics in primary schools. Eventually, English could replace Malay as the language of instruction for these two subjects, right up to tertiary level.
1.1 Statistic unemployment in Malaysia
In the Malaysia Economic Report 2008, you can see the workforce statistics for Malaysia employment between the year 2003 and year 2007. The statistics are divided into different sectors and industries, where you can see the number of the workforce, as well as percentage of growth (or reduction) as compared to the previous years. Manufacturing sector has shown to be one of the most important backbones of the Malaysia economy, even though the trend of growth has been steadily declining. The global competitiveness of the industry has driven many multinational companies to look for other alternative manufacturing avenues, particularly China. Perhaps, it is just true that some Free Trade Industrial Zones in Malaysia are facing extinction in the next years to come. The Agriculture, Forestry, Livestock and Fishing, combined together, have been showing some worrying trend, with less and less number of people making up the industry as the years go by. This is not a good sign, especially considering the country which is rich with its agriculture and forestry resources. For the last 10 years, Malaysia has been the biggest exporter of palm oil and a few other agricultural products and if this is to be maintained, something needs to be done. The merger of Golden Hope, Guthrie and Sime Darby hopefully will be able to revive the industry and return it to its glory days. The Government sector includes those in the public administration, health, education and defense. Clearly, from the growth chart, this is the most steady sector with very much linear growth for the past 3 years. However, with the new salary revision for public service employees, the competition to enter the public sector employment will be even more competitive and challenging. Gaining employment in the government sector is definitely the one that will frustrate job seekers the most. The combination of Finance, Insurance, Real Estates and Business Services with the Other Services (8) will show us that the services sector is the most vibrant and highest growing industry at the moment. It eclipses the manufacturing sector, which for many years have been dominating and driving the economy’s growth engine. This is where you need to slot yourself in. The Construction industry has been declining between 2004-2006 but came back with a bang in the year 2007. 2008 promises to be better yet with many gigantic projects, including the ECER (East Corridor Economic Region), NCER (North Corridor Economic Region), IDC (Iskandar Development Corridor), SER (Sabah Economic Corridor) and SCORE (Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy) developments set to take places.
Statistic shown that most of the unemployed graduates are from IT-related fields, and breakdown of the umemployment graduates are as follows:

Malay: 57,072 [96.33%]
Chinese: 1,027 [1.73%]
India: 1,007 [1.70%]
Others: 144 [0.24%]

Total: 59,250



1.2 Subject
1. Manufacturing
Year 2004 2005 2006 2007
Employment workforce 2.972mil 3.133mil 3.244mil 3.343mil
% growth (7.1) (5.4) (3.5) (3.0)
2. Agriculture, Forestry, Livestock and Fishing
Year 2004 2005 2006 2007
Employment workforce 1.413mil 1.401mil 1.392mil 1.378mil
% growth (-0.4) (-0.4) (-0.6) (-1.1)
3. Government (Civil service)
Year 2004 2005 2006 2007
Employment workforce 1.041mil 1.053mil 1.064mil 1.085mil
% growth (1.5) (1.1) (1.1) (1.1)
4. Finance, Insurance, Real Estates and Business Services
Year 2004 2005 2006 2007
Employment workforce 0.695mil 0.734mil 0.771mil 0.791mil
% growth (5.7) (5.7) (5.0) (2.6)
5. Construction
Year 2004 2005 2006 2007
Employment workforce 0.767mil 0.760mil 0.755mil 0.766mil
% growth (-0.9) (-1.0) (-0.6) (1.5)

6. Transport, Storage and Communication
Year 2004 2005 2006 2007
Employment workforce 0.594mil 0.630mil 0.646mil 0.662mil
% growth (8.3) (6.1) (2.5) (2.4)

7. Mining and Quarrying
Year 2004 2005 2006 2007
Employment workforce 42.6k 42.7k 42.6k 42.9k
% growth (0.9) (0.2) (-0.3) (0.7)
8. Other Services
Other services include electricity, gas and water, wholesale and retail trade, hotels, restaurants and other services.
Year 2004 2005 2006 2007
Employment workforce 2.943mil 3.138mil 3.234mil 3.334mil
% growth (4.8) (6.6) (3.4) (2.8)