Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad laments that the country does not have enough high-income jobs and blames the government for failing to provide an education that prepares graduates for the job market.
Mahathir’s allegations:
- Government’s failure to create more job opportunities
- Grads not doing what they are academically trained for
- Government’s failure to build up education system, R&D funding at universities slashed
Graduates earning a living selling nasi lemak or becoming ride-sharing drivers is a sign the country does not have enough high-income jobs and not something to boast about, Mahathir said.
During his second Policy Talk session broadcast “live” on his official Facebook account yesterday, he said such developments suggested that Malaysians were now struggling to get by with just a single job, rather than an indicator of growing entrepreneurship.
He was responding to a question from the public that said university graduates who become part-time Uber drivers are effectively taxi drivers, and which criticised the parading of graduates who set up nasi lemak stalls as “testament of economic success”.
The question also alleged that this reflects the government’s failure in creating jobs.
“We cannot be proud that our graduates drive Uber or sell nasi lemak. Instead, we must realise that despite the high level of training and knowledge they have received, they are forced to do jobs which have nothing to do with that training or knowledge. This is for them to sustain their income as they have no income sources,” he said.
Mahathir said university graduates were highly-trained and should instead have jobs that match their capabilities and education.
“They are forced to sell nasi lemak because they do not have job opportunities. We are training them to their full potential, not to be Uber drivers and nasi lemak sellers.
“If we want them to sell nasi lemak we should have a university that teaches them how to sell nasi lemak. We don’t have that kind of university.
“This is something that shames the country when graduates sell nasi lemak. This shows the government’s failure to match training and mastery of knowledge with job opportunities,” Mahathir said.
The Economic Report 2017/2018 released for Budget 2018 said the local multi-billion-ringgit “sharing economy”, which includes ride-hailing services like Uber, could help the lower-income group earn more and reduce the number of unemployed youths.
The Najib administration had in the past announced an incentive to help Malaysians become Uber and Grab drivers, including giving a rebate of RM4,000 when buying a Proton Iriz car.
Mahathir’s Policy Talk session yesterday was focused on youth empowerment, highlighting the importance of the connectedness of education and job opportunities.
He claimed that government funding for research and development at universities have been slashed and that there has not been increased allocation for fields such as technology, engineering and information technology.
“Because we don’t have such allocation, we find when they graduate from universities, there are no job opportunities because there must be a match between their knowledge and their job which they will do when they grow up to get income,” he said.
He said that instead of increasing budget allocations to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), Putrajaya should be building up the education system.
“What we see is that the government is reducing the education budget allocation. Like university (allocations), the budget is reduced to RM1.1 billion and we find that there is more allocation for the PMO; three to four times more than my time,” he said.
He also claimed that the unemployment rate among youth is very high.
“The unemployment rate among youth is three times higher than the national average. The national average is three percent but for youths, it is 11 percent,” he added.