The Brains In Malaysia

There are some many colleges and universities in our country. To me, it shows that the number of people getting higher education is very big. I could not imagine the number of graduates these institutions are producing every year. This is not inclusive of those who went abroad and further their education.

What do we do with the accumulation of brainy, educated people? I am not sure all of them are getting jobs. Some could have joined their family businesses. That is also expected to be of insignificant number. Even lower, are those who start off business at point of graduation. Nonetheless, there could be some who went overseas and work, but these are either the chosen ones or the brave ones.

Somehow, I think that there are plenty more that could be jobless. Just what is going to happen to them and how would they impact the social chemistry of our country.

This is not including those who lost their jobs...

The best input on your regional job market can be learnt direct from those who own food outlets, like stall and small restaurants. These are the people whose business are directly affected by the working group in an area. One of them gave me a simple remark,"It's not like what it used to be. Last time there were many factory workers.."

Yes, we used to have many factories in our country. I remember a simple operator could earn almost RM2k per month plus overtime. From the street you will notice so many blue buses transporting them back and forth. But these days, there are a few running, and they looked worn out!

Many factories moved to other countries like China and Thailand. We heard of reasons like lower labour cost. But there maybe other reasons, many of us don't know of. Maybe it's also about the ready market. We know China itself is a huge market. So products are manufactured and a good percentage of them could already be sold locally there. These manufacturers moved, despite warning that there could be a 'quality of products' glitch that they may face.

In any case, these manufacturers had tested our work force once and they know how good we were. They knew we have 'brains' here. We have a huge amount of skilled and trained work force. The work force itself, is one precious resource.

Another huge population is very near to us. It is Indonesia. I do not know to what potential are the investors looking at the country but the market is big. If somehow Indonesia turned around to become one new economic house, like China and India, I think judging by our location and capability, we will surely enjoy the fruits. Our skilled and trained work force can certainly play a big role in this new development.

Otherwise, our 'brains' in the country will continue on remaining untapped. It will carry some serious consequences because unhappy, unemployed work force can pose threats to the society.

Therefore, an immediate solution to the current problems we are facing, is provide people with jobs at a sensible salary.