The Department of Statistics of Malaysia says in 2020, the rate of skill-related underemployment for this group went up to 78.6% as compared to 55.1% in 2019. Overall, skill-related underemployment increased to 31.2% in 2020 from 26.7% in 2019 as a result of the health crisis and its ensuing consequence on the economy.Skill-related underemployment refers to a mismatch between occupation and qualification.
He says many employers encouraged their employees to upskill and reskill themselves to enable them to be multi-skilled to enhance performance and productivity. By ups-killing and reskilling, employees can ensure that their skills remain relevant to the employers need, he says. “They need to be agile and adaptable in order to weather the ever-changing working conditions brought by uncertainties and disruptions. They need to acquire skills such as digital literacy, collaboration, agility, creativity, problem- solving and data analysis to make themselves more marketable,” he says.“The workplace environment is changing to more remote working and new graduates need to equip themselves with those skills to remain employable,” he says.
“For instance, sales jobs may be deemed not so preferable because of their nature of remuneration, which relies heavily on commission.