The Woes of Unemployment

Recently graduated, it was shocking that the life we had all dreamed about; of a comfortable paying job, with a modest car to get around and enough money now finally to take AirAsia trips with friends and enjoy life -- had to DIE!

We (a few of my classmates and I) took a slight break, maybe about a month after our studies ended, to just enjoy ourselves a little, take short road trips, with the balance of the PTPTN money we had. Little did we know, that life outside that Harrier 9 of us squeezed into for our epic journey down south, was a web of frustrations and connections and impossibility for job prospects.

As soon as we decided to find a job, and started applying for jobs in hospitals since it was a dream of many to work in a hospital setting; everyone told us that's where the experience is! But as we sent the emails of resumes, and waited for the phone calls that would call us in for the numerous interviews we deserved; none did! Nada, Zilch, ZERO phone calls!

Then slowly, the worry in us grew, we thought ah maybe hospitals are all just waiting a little while more to employ us eager fresh graduates. But then, slowly as time went by, still....NO CALLS! And then, one fun afternoon, after a lunch with a lecturer of ours, we found out that we were alone in this battle of employment as a lot of my other classmates were in fact employed and even fought over by a few hospitals and institutions.

We had to sit down and analyse what was wrong with us. The one obvious reason came up; we just weren't very Chinese. Apparently all employers of major hospitals preferred Chinese employees. I remember we were told numerous times that it just gels with the majority of patients that the hospitals drew in. I'm sorry, but we apparently weren't on the train that changed the national language of Malaysia to Mandarin/Cantonese. If Cantonese/Mandarin was so important (nothing wrong with that!) but then it should be implemented to be a compulsory language to learn in schools, so everyone gets equal opportunity.

Then the small centres that we did apply for jobs at, paid us so little that it was impossible to buy a car to travel to the centre and then pay our heavy debt of ptptn and also to be able to LIVE! Centres wanted to pay us RM 1500 even for a full day 6 days a week job. What utter rubbish!

Then we also found out, that it was impossible to obtain an interview in major hospitals that would most likely pay you a fair amount of money, without some connections. We had to make sure connections were sought out and effort was taking in making connections. The whole thing became so tedious, that all we could talk about when we met up, was how frustrating applying for a job as a Physiotherapist in Malaysia was.

The problem is that our government, ministry of education and ministry of health, never screens, never denies new colleges that spring up like mushrooms all over Malaysia offering courses like Nursing, Physiotherapy and many other allied health science courses. With no control over the number of diploma graduates being produced every year in these fields; Malaysia has done what seemed to be impossible; saturated the field of allied health sciences so much that you see unemployed physiotherapist as well as NURSES. Two jobs that are highly in demand almost anywhere else in the world. Bravo!

With diploma graduates of nursing and physiotherapy being produced in the thousands only around KL; jobs are becoming more and more scarce and because it is so saturated, employers now know that they don't need to pay very high as much as a graduate deserves since jobs are so hard to come by, anyone would jump at the opportunity of the first job they obtain. So it starts; the payment of RM 1200 - 1500 for diploma graduates.

So now, what do we degree graduates do? We're all high and mighty convincing everyone we have to better than a diploma graduate but with no regulation in job designation of a diploma and degree graduate, why would any employer want to higher a degree graduate and pay you more when they could higher a diploma graduate and pay less? The set of skills we learn are almost similar in fact. But okay, so some employers have been hearing about a rumour of a Bill that might be passed station diploma graduates would be assistant physiotherapists and degree graduates only can be qualified physiotherapist, so to be safe, they hire a few degree qualified physiotherapists in hospitals and centres. But again because it's so saturated, and they need way fewer degree graduates than the ones that are produced; employers cap their pay at RM 1800.

So the vicious cycle continues, as we take these offers of RM 1800 and continue to go deeper in debts that we cant afford to pay off, cause cars take 10 years to pay off, ptptn loans take 20 years to pay off, houses take 20 years to pay off....we fall into the trap of leading a life full of debts till we finally die.

Dreams of travelling are slowly pushed aside, as we are now faced with a difficult question; to do what we spent the last 4 years studying and have grown to like and have passion for but earn peanuts, or to do something totally unrelated (like work in a call centre) and easily make twice the money and be able to travel and do things in our lives before we kicked the bucket.

I am saddened when faced with this question, as I feel no person should be but Malaysia has made this part of our lives. Many of my friends chose the latter, not by choice but by circumstances. We may get lucky breaks, but not all of us are that lucky. If this country does not change, we'd be stuck with our children and children's children worrying about the same thing and going through the same experiences as us, and unemployment would come to an absolute high that this economy and country would not be able to do anything else but crumble.