According to the latest Graduate Statistics 2021, released by the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM) on 28 July 2022, the number of graduates in Malaysia increased by 4.7% in 2021 to record a total of 5.61mn persons, up from 5.36mn that was recorded in 2020.
- The number of graduates in the labour force (employed and unemployed) rose 4.6% in 2021, recording a total of 4.77mn persons — higher than the 4.56mn recorded the year before. Meanwhile, graduates’ labour force participation rate (GLFPR) remained at 85%.
The statistics on employed graduates were broken down by gender, status of employment, and occupation.
Looking at gender breakdown– in 2021, the share of women graduates (51.9%, or 2.37mn persons) was higher than that of men (48.1%, or 2.2mn persons).
Compared to the previous year, the number of employed women graduates experienced a higher annual growth of 7.4% in 2021, as opposed to an increase of 2.5% in the number of employed male graduates.
By status of employment breakdown, nearly 90% of employed graduates were in the category of ’employee’, making up 4.03mn persons.
At the same time, employed graduates in the category of ‘own account worker’, which could also be associated with entrepreneurship, made up 6.4% (290,400 persons), followed by ’employer’ at 4.3% (196,600 persons). Meanwhile, another 1.1% (48,900) of employed graduates were unpaid family workers.
Going by occupation category, around two-thirds of employed graduates (64.8%) were in the skilled occupations category, accounting for 2.96mn persons.
- The highest share (41.1%, or 1.88mn persons) were employed in professional occupations, followed by technicians and associate professionals comprising 16.6% (758,200 persons). On the contrary, another 35.2% of graduates worked in the semi-skilled and low-skilled occupation categories.
According to DOSM, the abovementioned groups could be facing a mismatch in their occupations, with their education, knowledge, and skills not being fully utilised in their current work.
employed graduates in the semi-skilled category, which accounted for 32.9% of the total numbers, were largely employed as clerical support workers (14.4%), followed by service and sales workers (10.8%), and craft and related trades workers (4.2%). The remaining 2.3% were employed in the low-skilled category.
“the situation of skill-related underemployment which has been one of the fundamental and structural issues in the labour market has intensified since the health crisis,” DOSM statement said.
In 2021, it added, the rate of skill-related underemployment for graduates continued to trend up, registering 33.9% (1.55mn persons) of the total numbers (2020: 31.2%, or 1.36mn persons).
On the unemployment front, women made up 54.2% of the total number of unemployed graduates recorded in 2021 (106,900 persons), while unemployed male graduates made up 45.8% (90,500 persons).
“The decline in unemployment of graduates for the year 2021 was due to the reduction in the number of unemployed male graduates by 5.3% as against 2020, while the number of female unemployed graduates registered a marginal increase of 0.03%,” DOSM said.
Meanwhile, the make-up of male and female unemployed graduates across age groups were similar whereby approximately half was concentrated in the age group of 25 to 34 years, followed by about one-third in the age group of 24 years and below, this could be associated with new entrants into the labour market.
DOSM found that close to four in 10 (35.3%, or 296,000 persons) graduates were outside the labour force in 2021, “due to housework/family responsibilities.”
At the same time, those who were attending school/ training programmes made up 32.2% of the numbers (270,800 persons), while another 4.9% (49,000 persons) were going to further their studies.
Thus, education and training purposes ranked second as a reason for graduates to be outside the labour force.
