KUCHING, March 8 ― The federal government’s “very bad policies” have resulted in a high number of unemployed graduates whose qualifications do not meet those required by the job market, Sarawak Chief Minister Tan Sri Adenan Satem said today.
“These policies are not thought of properly and the results can be disastrous. Now we are landed with thousands of unemployed graduates,” he said while launching the Sarawak Career and Training Fair at the Borneo Convention Centre Kuching (BCCK) here.
As example, he said there were cases of thousands of graduates who studied to be religious teachers who are now finding difficulty getting jobs in the private and public sectors.
“What are we going to do with them after they graduated? We need religious teachers, of course, but not that many,” the state Barisan Nasional (BN) chief said.
He said the Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy (SCORE) alone is expected to employ over 600,000 skilled and semi-skilled jobs by 2030.
However, the state government was restricted in what it could offer such graduates, and could only hire them as administrators.
“We must produce graduates with technical skills and training as well as proficiency in the English language,” he said, adding these are the requirements needed by the industries.
Earlier in the event, Assistant Minister in charge of Technical Education Datuk Len Talif Salleh said there are between 15,000 and 20,000 graduates in Sarawak who are currently unemployed after completing their tertiary education as they possess qualifications that do not match the job market's requirements.
“Among others, they are not technically trained and skillful and have poor command of communication in English,” he said, adding that the graduates also lacked self-confidence during job interviews.
He said the Sarawak BN government has received applications from 40,000 50,000 graduates for jobs in the state civil service.
