Perception of Barriers in Labour Market Attachment among Marginalised Youth in Malaysia
National University of Malaysia
ABSTRACT
Role of youth in society is very prominent for its future. Youth unemployment rate today challenges the generation growth in most countries. The rate of unemployment among young people is soaring and they are finding difficulties in identifying careers that matches their skills and qualification. In year 2012, youth represents 61% or 8 171 200 of Malaysia’s total of 12 675 800 labour force and 64% or 7 820 400 youths represent the country’s 12 284 400 total employment published. It is more prominent among youth from marginalised communities. A pilot study was designed to explore the potential limitations or perception of barriers among the marginalised youth in labour market attachment. Closed-ended questionnaires were designed based on the past published research findings and administered online and manually on a random selection. 80 samples in the age group of 15 to 40 responded to the questionnaires. Collected data underwent descriptive analyses in SPSS. The analysis underlined the following as key contributors, lack of working experience, lack of confidence, low academic qualification, poor communication skills and poor language proficiency as the obvious barriers. The findings show that 49% of the participants agreed that lack of working experience is an important barrier for them to enter the labour market. 46% and 38% of youth respectively consider lack of confidence and low academic qualification are the next potential factors that hinder them from being employed. This study has assisted us in identifying the basic factors that being perceived by the marginalised youth in Malaysian community as the barriers in labour market attachment. The next step of action is to engage the employers in a similar pilot study to identify the employers’ perception of labour market attachment among the marginalised youth in Malaysia.
KEYWORDS
Perception of barriers, labour market attachment, marginalised youth