SUSTAINABLE STRATEGIES FOR HIGH LOCAL YOUTH EMPLOYMENT IN THE CONSTRUCTION WORKFORCE IN MALAYSIA
Keywords:
Local youth, foreign works, labor, constructionAbstract
The construction industry in Malaysia is heavily dependent on foreign workers. Unfortunately, it seems that the local youth would prefer to be unemployed rather than be employed in construction sites. Archival data from the Labor Force Survey Report was compiled to determine the trend of youth participation in the construction workforce. The findings indicate that local youth participation has never exceeded 25% of the total construction workforce. An extensive survey was also carried out on youth at vocational training centers to determine their current perception of a career in the construction industry especially in construction sites. Surprisingly, the findings of the survey found that 3’D (difficult, dangerous and dirty) image is no longer a main factor in distracting local youth from pursuing career in the construction workforce. Hence, the strategies have been adopted based on
extensive feedback from self-administered questionnaire survey to acquire perception 288 local youth who are taking the non-construction courses at GIATMARA Malaysia. Construction industry experts representing Government Authority, Researcher and contractor were also interviewed to obtain an insight on what went wrong with the previous and current initiatives to attract youth into the construction industry and how things can be done better. This study has attempted to produce more effective and sustainable strategies that can transform the construction industry into a preferred sector of employment for local youth.
References
Abdul, A.R., Jaafar, M., Enshassi, A., & Mohamed, M.N. (2008). Does vocational training meet the construction industry needs in Malaysia. Manpower., 43, 258-268.
Adnan, H., & Jusoff, K. (2009). Corporate management structure of large Malaysian construction companies. Journal of Management Research., 1, 1-11.
Akintoye, A. (1998). Analysis of factors influencing project cost. Construction Management and Economics Journal. 18, 77-89.
Aziz, A.R. (2002). Skill shortage in the construction sector: A critical survey of existing formal vocational training systems. Journal of Kajian Malaysia., 02, 57-68.
Brown, J.D. (2011). Likert items and scales of measurement. Journal of JALT Testing and Evaluation SIG Newsletter., 15, 10-14.
CIDB. (2003a). Guidelines for Industrialised Building Systems (IBS). Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
CIDB. (2003b). Malaysia report. Paper presented at the Conference on Malaysia Report, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
CIDB. (2010a). Akademi Binaan Malaysia (ABM). Retrieved August 17, 2010, from http://www.cidb.gov.my
CIDB. (2010b). Newsletter of the Construction Industry Development Board Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Dale. (2010). Likert scales: Encyclopedia of consumer culture. SAGE Publications. Department of Statistic Malaysia. (2012). Labour Force Survey Report.
Esa, A., Abdul-Razak, A.R., Masek, A., & Selamat, A. (2009). The perception of students towards the community colleges’ courses that offered in Malaysia. Journal of Asian Social Science, 5, 98-107.
Gill, I.S., & Dar, A. (1999). Constraints and innovation in reforming national training systems: Cross-country comparison. Journal of Manpower, 68, 405-431.
Hall, J., & Sandelands. (2009). Addressing South Africa’s engineering skills gaps. Journal of Education and Training, 37, 215-219.
Haron, N.A., Hassim, S., Kadir, R.A., & Jaafar, M.S. (2005). Building cost comparison between conventional and formwork system. Journal of Technology, 43, 1-11.
Hassim, S., Jaafar, M.S., & Sazalli, S.A. (2009). The contractor perception towers Industrialised Building System risk in construction projects in Malaysia. Journal of Applied Sciences, 6, 937-942.
Ibrahim, A.R., Roy, M.H., Ahmed, Z., & Imtiaz. (2010). An investigation of the status of the Malaysian construction industry. Journal of Benchmarking, 17, 294-308.
International Labour Organization. (2001). Tripartite meeting on the construction industry in the Twenty-first Century: Its image, employment prospect and skill requirements. International Labour Office Geneva.
Ministry of Human Resources of Malaysia. (2013). Immigration in Malaysia:Assessment of its economic effects, and a review of the policy and system. Human Development Social Protection and Labor Unit East Asia and Pacific Region.
Kamar, A.M., Arif, M., Egbu, C., Hamid, Z.A., Zin, Z.M., Ghani, M.K., & Rahim, H.A. (2009). Industrialised Building Systems (IBS). Paper presented at the proceedings of 1st CIDB/CREAM IBS Roundtable Workshop (IRW01), Kuala Lumpur,Malaysia.
Kazilan, F., Hamzah, R., & Bakar., A.R. (2009). Employability skills among the students of technical and vocational training centers in Malaysia. European Journal: Social Sciences, 9, 147-160.
Kulchartchai, O., & Hadikusumo H.W. (2010). Exploratory study of obstacles in safety culture development in the construction industry. Construction in Developing Countries Journal, 15, 1-19.
Lobo, Y.B., & Wilkinson, S. (2008). Approaches to solving the skills shortages in the New Zealand construction industry. Journal of Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management , 54, 42-53.
Master Builders Association Malaysia. (2008). Construction Industry Outlook 2009. Journal of Master Builders,3, 1-69.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2018 Journal of Academia
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
