Fresh grads, no experience, no job: Malaysia’s catch-22 in the AI age

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 1 — With the national jobless rate at just 2.9 per cent, Malaysia’s labour market looks healthy on paper, yet fresh graduates say artificial intelligence (AI) is making the first rung of the career ladder harder to reach.

Andy Iskandar Baharudin, 23, a finance graduate from a public university, has applied to more than 100 companies since an internship ended in July, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported today.

“How are we supposed to gain experience as fresh graduates if even getting an opportunity to work is difficult?” he asked.

Marketing graduate Nafeesa Azman, 24, says she has sent out 200 to 300 applications since finishing an internship about two months ago.

She blames AI for thinning out copywriting and visual-content work, and says employers armed with the tools are lowballing on pay.

Nafeesa wants at least RM3,000 a month, she said, but many offers fall short.

The routine tasks that once trained newcomers, such as taking notes, preparing slides and compiling data, can now be done faster and more cheaply by AI, SCMP noted.

The Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM) put unemployment among those aged 15 to 24 at 10.1 per cent in August, or 291,300 people.

Among those with jobs, DOSM found that 35.2 per cent of employed tertiary-educated workers were in semi-skilled or low-skilled roles in the second quarter.

The Human Resource Ministry told Parliament back in June that 1.6 million graduates, or 32.2 per cent of the graduate workforce, were underemployed in 2024, and that then government was accelerating labour market reforms.

A study commissioned by the Human Resources Ministry found last year that 600,000 existing jobs were “at risk” from AI, though then minister Steven Sim said up to 60 per cent of employers across 10 key sectors expected AI to create jobs.

The International Labour Organization estimates that nearly 80 million South-east Asian workers will be affected by AI, and 11.7 million could lose their jobs or see their tasks reworked.

Its July report, however, found no evidence yet of large-scale AI-driven job losses in the region.

A similar situation appears to be developing to Malaysia’s south, in Singapore.

Singapore Prime Minister Lawrence Wong said on October 12 that AI may have already broken the “bottom rung” of the career ladder.

Singapore will subsidise firms that take on interns, and has unveiled a S$1 billion (RM3.19 billion) plan covering worker upskilling, infrastructure, hardware and research.

International Monetary Fund managing director Kristalina Georgieva warned on October 16 that young people who would once have taken professional routine jobs are now serving coffee in Starbucks.

“That is not what I think young people in the world aspire for,” she said during the IMF and World Bank annual meetings in Bangkok.

For Andy, the wish is simple: “We do want to work, gain experience and build our own careers.”