PUTRAJAYA – The number of unemployed graduates increased by 22.5% to 202,400 individuals in 2020 compared with 165,200 a year earlier, data by the Statistics Department today showed.
Chief Statistician Datuk Seri Mohd Uzir Mahidin, citing the Graduates Statistics 2020, said the increase is due to the unfavourable economic environment last year and its consequences for the overall labour market.
In a statement today, he said the graduate unemployment rate for 2020 went up 0.5 percentage points to 4.4% against 3.9% in 2019.
“More than 75% of unemployed graduates were actively seeking work, whereby almost half were unemployed for less than three months.”
He said among 4.35 million employed graduates last year, more than two-thirds, or 68.8%, were in the “skilled occupation” category, but the figure declined 0.8% from 2019, with the decrease registered in the “professional occupation”, “technicians” and “associate professional occupation” categories.
The “semi-skilled occupation” category gained 19.3% of employed graduates last year, particularly in terms of services and sales workers, plant and machinery operators, and assemblers, he said.
Given this, the composition of employed graduates in the “semi-skilled occupation” category stood at 28.9% in 2020 and “low-skilled occupation” category (2.3%).
Uzir said over 75% of graduates, or 3.37 million, were employed in the services sector, followed by manufacturing (14.6%).
There were 800,900 graduates outside the labour force last year, of whom 39.4% cited housework or family responsibilities, he said.
According to the department’s 2020 Salary and Wage Survey, he said, graduates’ mean monthly salaries for their full-time equivalent principal occupations decreased 10.6% to RM4,489 from RM5,020 in 2019.
Degree holders earned mean salaries of RM5,471 per month in 2020, lower by 9.1% on-year, while diploma holders received mean salaries of RM3,311, a dip of 11.5%, he said.
The “skilled occupation” category recorded the highest decline of 8.0% to RM5,316, while those in the “semi-skilled occupation” category received RM2,418, lower by 2.7% from 2019. – Bernama, July 27, 2021
