Why Malaysian Graduates Still Can't Find Good Jobs

Two armies, and why both have a point

Every time these numbers come up, the internet splits into two armies. Army one says the jobs are trash: RM1,800 a month, six-day weeks, rent eats half of it. Vacancies do not mean liveable vacancies, so why would a graduate take a job that pays less than a delivery rider?

Army two says graduates are the problem: weak English, never built anything, expecting RM4,000 to RM5,000 fresh out of university with no skills, sending CVs that say "good at Microsoft Word".

I run a company, I hire people and I help people get jobs, so I sit on both sides. Both armies have a point. But once you see what is actually happening, you cannot unsee it, and more importantly, you can do something about it.

Why degree holders were standing in that queue

In June a video went viral: roughly 1,000 people queuing two kilometres in the sun for an open interview at Infineon, the semiconductor company, for about 500 vacancies. A thousand people for 500 jobs, in a country with 600,000 vacancies. Everyone asked why Malaysians are so desperate. That is the wrong question. The right one is why were degree holders standing in that line at all?

Here is the statistic behind the video: about two million Malaysians are in what the government calls skill-related underemployment. That is roughly 36% of everyone with tertiary education. One in three graduates working a job their degree was never needed for: waiting tables with an accounting degree, data entry with an engineering degree, driving Grab with a business degree. We break this down in our research on the underemployment paradox.

So when army one says the jobs are trash, what they are really describing is: the jobs I qualify for are trash. That is a different sentence.

The empty chair economy

Picture a giant room with 600,000 chairs. Many are plastic stools: RM1,800, long hours, no future. But scattered through the room are leather chairs paying RM5,000, RM8,000, RM12,000, RM20,000 a month: cloud engineers, data people, AI-skilled workers, developers, cybersecurity. Those chairs exist, and companies are desperate to fill them.

The proof: one industry study found 81% of Malaysian employers struggle to find the AI talent they need, and that employers are willing to pay over 40% more for workers with AI skills. Same country, same economy, same room. Our State of AI Hiring report has the salary bands.

So why are the leather chairs empty while graduates queue for plastic stools? Because the leather chairs have a height requirement, and our education system spent 20 years measuring the wrong thing. Around 300,000 graduates enter the workforce every year. When you print too much of anything, it loses value. Your degree did not get worse. It became common, and common is not valuable. The market is not rejecting you. It is repricing you. Only one of those is permanent.

Why nobody is fixing it

Everybody knows. The Human Resources Minister told Parliament that up to 697,000 jobs could be significantly affected by AI, digital and green-economy shifts in the next three to five years if workers do not reskill. Billions are being spent on upskilling programmes.

But here is the uncomfortable part: much of the education system gets paid when you enrol, not when you get hired. The incentives were never aligned. Fees are collected long before you graduate, and whether you end up in a leather chair or a plastic stool, nobody refunds you. That is a big part of why we put our own money on the line with a money-back guarantee, and I would like to see that kind of skin in the game become normal.

The loudest voices in this debate do not have skin in the game either. The politician gets you angrier, the influencer gets views, the comment section gets to feel right. None of them has to sit in your chair. You do. So the fix has to come back to you. That is actually good news: you do not need to wait for a new policy or government. The gap between the plastic stool and the leather chair is a skills gap, and skills are something you can go and get.

What I would do at 22: three steps

This is what I did at 22 and what I would still do today.

Your degree is the starting line

Be a bit angry at these numbers. The story that your qualification is the finish line is a lie. It is the starting line. It is not even an entrance pass to a job, just a ticket to queue for one. "Study hard, get the paper, and the system owes you a good chair" may have worked in our parents' day. That story expired years ago, and two million underemployed Malaysians did not get the memo.

But do not stay angry, because if you stay angry you will be in the comment section instead of closing the skills gap. Malaysia is not out of chairs. There are 600,000 seats waiting to be filled. The only question that matters is which one you will be qualified for 12 months from now, and unlike almost everything else in this country, the answer is entirely up to you.

If the leather chairs you circled are in software, AI or data, the fastest way to start closing the gap is to build something. Our free trial gets you building with AI in the first session, and the AI-Native Software Development Programme is the full 12-week path. For more on the job market itself, read no job after graduation in Malaysia.