Wednesday, March 23, 2005

Unemployment... Who's to blame?

Recently there had been a series of articles regarding how graduates are getting unemployed. Here's one of the example here. It says that our PM is worried about the unemployment rate in our beloved nation. The article also mentioned about a total of 80,000 graduates are unemployed just last year. So I am asking this question: Who's to blame?

Maybe some ministers will point the finger at us saying we are too choosy when it comes to choosing work or they will blame us for irrelevant skills (in this case here our Human Resource Minister is blaming the female graduates). Then there will always be the uncles and aunties who condemn local graduates of being no-class. Trust me, I had faced tons of "compliments" from the chinese uncle and aunty population about how local universities suck and studying in it means "no future".

True, we (graduates and undergraduates) might be partly to blame here, but why are the whole society, led by our low-ranking Ministers (trust me, in Malaysia it is usually the low-ranking Ministers especially those you had never heard of make the loudest noise from religious issues to education to anything under the sun!) are pointing the finger at us for being the sole reason of this national problem? Why can't the government see they are partly to be blame as well?

They are the ones that approve so many colleges and private Universities in the first place. They are the one that refuses to venture into more job oppoturnities. Just look at our IT industry, the biggest player in Malaysia IT industry is sadly the PIRATES. Look at our art industry, it is still in its infancy which seems to me there is no hope of growing unless the government start to pay attention to it. The R&D in our country? What? There's R&D in our country? Heck, I am sure most of the people in Malaysia (aunty and uncles and ministers included) don't even know what R&D is! To those who are still ignorant of what R&D is, it is the acronym of Research and Development. Or look at the entertainment industry, the music industry is stale there is only the Malay music scene, the Chinese, unless they go overseas, they are doomed to singing Chinese New Year songs for the rest of their careers. How about the English music scene? Most of them are surprisingly good but unfortunately fails to break into the international circuit due to lack of funds to promote them overseas.

The movie industry is plagued by the censorship, lousy directors and horrible scripts and most of the movies produced are aim at the Malay audience. Only once in a while you see a "Sepet" that is loved by all the races in Malaysia. The video gaming career despite being given much exposure these few years don't seem to have any success. Reason? Low-ranking Ministers and the aunty/uncle population threatening to close all cyber cafes because playing video games will "destroy your future". Little do they know that some individuals earn more than them just by playing video games >_<.

There are so many job opportunities that the government can explore but yet they are sitting there pointing the fingers at us telling us that we are to blame. True like I said just now, we are partly to be blame but we are not the sole reason. Since the government can pour in tons of money just to build World class buildings and some useless expedition to satisfy their ego, why not pour in those money to help their people getting employed and make Malaysia a world class society instead?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It is not that I hate Mahatir or what so ever...unemployment is even worse among the malay community because of their attitudes, "Goverment will help wan lar..." and so they ended up selling burger at the streets and open mamak stalls. Blame the ministers, yes. And blame Mahatir. He was the one who made them into what they are today...i mean most of them. Overly realiance on the government + they think too highly of themselves when they really have little value in the first place.

And like wat I hear ppl say, first world infrastructure, third world mentality...including those uncle and aunties. (Educated adults, some of who I know are different. Because they know what they are talking about.

And don't blame me for being prejudice, but most of the time, behind really successful Malay figures, you can see that the chinese are the ones really doing the work.

Justin Tan said...

This is what I use to describe Malaysia, "A city with kampung ppl living in it". Its just sad to see even those educated uncle and aunties can be so narrowminded at times.