Job Mismatch and Overeducation among Graduates in Malaysia

Abstract

The supply of young graduates entering Malaysia labour market due to the expansion in higher education undergone a sharp increase. A consequence of this is an increase in the number of individuals who are unemployed and doing jobs with low income and depressing job environment. In other words, they are doing jobs that do not commensurate to their level of educational qualifications or referred to as overeducation. By using a Job Analyst Method, which is one of the frequent methods used to measure overeducation and data from Graduate Tracer Study (GTS) published by the Ministry of Education Malaysia from 2012 - 2017, this paper provides a descriptive analysis on the extent of overeducation among graduates. The result highlights that the percentage of overeducated graduates keep on increasing, and the majority of them engaged in the labour market as clerks and sales workers.