435,100 unemployed individuals in M'sia

KUALA LUMPUR: There are 435,100 unemployed individuals in Malaysia with an unemployment rate of 3.1%, the Dewan Negara was told today.
The Human Resources Ministry, in a written reply to Senator Datuk Yahaya Mat Ghani, said the figures, which were updated for the first half of 2015, were obtained from the Labour force report of the Statistics Department.
"According to the report, Sabah has the highest unemployment rate with 77,100 people, followed by Selangor (71,200 people), Johor (52,200 people), Sarawak (43,700) and Perak (32,800 people)," it said.
"Based on the same report, up to 2014, the number of diploma holders and degree holders who are unemployed stands at 107,200 people," it said, disputing a study which alleged that there were 200,000 unemployed graduates in the country.
The ministry said it is concerned with the unemployment rate among youths and graduates, and had carried out several initiatives with other agencies to tackle the issue.
Some of the initiatives include the 1Malaysia Training Scheme Programme (SL1M) by the Economic Planning Unit, the Entrepreneur Training Programme under MARA and the Graduate Employability Management Scheme (Gems) Talent Corporation.