The number of unemployed graduates in the country went up 22.5 percent last year, compared to the year before.

According to the Statistics Deparment's (DOSM) data released yesterday, there were 202,400 unemployed graduates last year - up from 165,200 in 2019.

Bernama quoted Chief Statistician Mohd Uzir Mahidin saying that the situation was due to an unfavourable economic environment last year, and its impact on the labour market.

"More than 75 per cent of unemployed graduates were actively seeking work, whereby almost half were unemployed for less than three months," he reportedly said in a statement after the statistics was released.

The graduates cited in the statistics were those with the highest certificate obtained from universities, colleges, polytehnics, recognised bodies or equivalent, with the study duration of at least two years.

Mohd Uzir also pointed out that the number of graduates employed in the professional category went down last year, while the number in the semi-skilled category saw an increase.

"Those in semi-skilled and low-skilled categories were classified as skill-related underemployment since they were taking up jobs that did not match their level of qualifications."

According to Uzir further, there were about 800,900 graduates who were outside the labour force last year. About 40 per cent of them were due to housework or family responsibilities.

The data also showed that the salaries and wages of the graduates had gone down between 2.7 per cent and 11.5 per cent last year, compared to the year before. This applied to the various categories - skilled to semi-skilled, and from diploma, to degree holders.

The dim prospects have caused many graduates to resort to doing side jobs, such as delivery riders and so on, reported Malay Mail today.


Source: Bernama
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