LANGKAWI: Job vacancy in the country exceeds the unemployment rate but many Malaysians are still unemployed as they are choosy about jobs, said Human Resources Minister Datuk Dr S Subramaniam.
He said the attitude of being choosy about jobs had resulted in certain industries to be greatly dependent on foreign workers.
“Foreign workers accounted for 90 per cent of estate labourers and 70 per cent of general workers.
“Estate labourers, whose jobs include harvesting fruits, fetch a monthly basic salary of between RM1,500 and RM2,000 while general workers earn about RM700 monthly,” he told reporters after opening a RM2.2 million block at the Sungai Raya Estate Tamil School here yesterday.
Subramaniam said the national unemployment rate at present was 3.2 per cent or equivalent to about 300,000 unemployed. — Bernama