Unemployed Graduates

Almost all those who attended the interviews I conducted recently were University graduates, eventhough the advertisement didn't specifically mentioned so.

What does this show?
It's an indication of the number of graduates our country is churning out yearly, unqualified to be blunt. Most of the interviewee (graduates) have just been in their current employment for about 6 months or so and most of them have been working in at least 3 companies prior to that.
This brings me to the subject of today- Unemployed Graduates: just how many are there & why are they there?


UNEMPLOYED GRADUATES*
In 2004, there were 4,594 unemployed graduates of which 163 were Chinese, 207 were Indians and 4,060 were Malays;
In 2005, there were 2,413 unemployed graduates of which 31 were Chinese, 70 were Indians and 2,186 were Malays;
In 2006, there were 56,750 unemployed graduates of which 1,110 were Chinese, 1,346 were Indians and 50,594 were Malays.
In 2007, there were 56,322 unemployed graduates of which 1,348 were Chinese, 1,401 were Indians and 49,075 were Malays.
In 2008 (as of June) there were 47,910 unemployed graduates of which 1,403 Chinese, 1,569 Indians and 44938 were Malays.



University & Percentage of Graduates Unemployed
Universiti Teknologi Mara 16.2%
Universiti Utara Malaysia 7.6%
Private Universities & Colleges 6.0%
University Teknologi Malaysia 5.7%
University Kebangsaan Malaysia 4.8%
University Pertanian Malaysia 4.5%
Other Public Universities 4.2%
Universiti Malaya 2.6%
Universiti Sains Malaysia 2.5%
Universiti Malaysia Sabah 1.8%
Universiti Islam Antarabangsa 1.8%
Foreign Graduates 1.7%
Universiti Malaysia Sarawak 0.9%
Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris 0.2%
Others 39.5%

Out of the total unemployed graduates, 70% were from the Public Universities & 26% from Private Universities.

Remember also that prior to 1969 (year of the May 13 incident), there were just 2 Public Universities. Between 1969 & 1999, nine Universities were set up & thereafter another nine.

No wonder the friendly burgerman next door was a graduate.

University of Malaya inside Top 200!

University of Malaya up to 180 from 200 last year! What jubilations....but wait, National University of Singapore is ranked 30 and Nanyang Technological University at 77. Good try , maybe next year we may break the under 100 barrier.

We hope the standards of our University graduates will improve in years to come but not right in the foreseeable future, what with the current entry selection criteria.

I have interviewed countless candidates for job positions in the companies I worked with and most aspiring applicants never ceased to awe me. Poor spoken English, lack of knowledge in the fields whose jobs they were looking for. About 85% of them didn't know what jobs they were applying for!( You see, nowadays ready-made resume are available and these job aspirants just didn't know which positions they were looking for when the time came for them to be interviewed...and they just don't care. When asked for the positions they were looking for, a few answered " any positions available"!

If the Government is just interested in churning out pre-packed graduates from our Universities, I say let them expire after their time out on the shelves.

Additional Costs of Exporting to Venezuela

Recently, I have the misfortune to witness the immense red tapes it took me to process the shipping documentations and procedures just to ship some products to Venezuela. Officially it is called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and the people there speak Spanish. Population about the same as Malaysia ,26m.
Be ready to cover all hidden costs and set your selling price straight or you may end up a few thousand ringgit poorer.
Almost all shipping docs must be endorsed by various approving authorities before you may ship or unload your cargo at destination.
For a start,

EXPORT TO VENEZUELA ---Legalisation of documents
Docs required:
1. Registration of Co. cert (ROC).. Form 9
2. Memorandum of Article & Association
3. Particulars of Board of Directors ..Form 49
4. Company registered address..Form 44
5. Manufacturing license
6. General commercial letter
7. Certificate of Origin (CO)
8. Commercial Invoice
9. Packing List
10. Bill of Lading

Most of these docs have to be notarised by a Notary Public, Authenticated by the Ministry of Foreign Affair and then legalised by the Venezuela Embassy.
Of course, the CO has to be issued by FMM or the Chamber of Commerce.

Moneywise, it will cost RM50 to get each docs notarised and RM199 to get each doc(6~10) legalised by the Venezuela Embassy. We are grateful that Wisma Putra does not charge anything, I think. By the way, it costs RM266 to get the CO legalised by the Venezuela Embassy!
(Well, just a rubber stamped..)

All in, minimum RM1542..it may be more.

And mind you, we have not even touch on the port, forwarding, Custom, etc charges at destination yet.

So for those of you who are thinking of exporting anything to this South American northern coastal country, compute your costing carefully to recoup your profit margin.

Mamula Moon -Terang Bulan - Negaraku

Yeap! The STAR reported that there's this group in Indonesia trying to sweep Malaysians in Central Jakarta. It's real scary what our not so friendly neigbour can do at the slightest opportunity available, right or wrong.



Pic shows the group checking suspected cars for Malaysians.

The Indonesians also accused Malaysia for stealing their Balinese pendet dance after the Discovery Channel promotion clip, which was later admitted and apologised as an error by Discovery Channel.

Actually, just as some Malaysians wanted to 'bully' the Singaporeans and act as the taikor, some Indonesians also wanted to 'bully' Malaysians and act as our taikor too!
So our Govt earlier policy of importing these Indonesians to Malaysia has backfired because the latter never appreciated the 1.5million job opportunities created for them. I say we should just reduce the dependence on them and get the Myanmars, Nepalese, Bangladeshis, Indians and why not ( sic), the PRC Chinese to replace them. Then it's Malaysia truly Asia la la.

But the one thing I get pissed off is this their claiming the Negaraku was copied from their Terang Bulan. To get the matter straight, it was found out later that Terang Bulan was actually copied from an old Hawaiian song called Mamula Moon!


Hear the You Tube songs below and judge for yourself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4o_kissLWU


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPcNnHEsFM0



But I still can't get it...if it was so obvious, why didn't anybody detect that our very own National Anthem was not the original for the last 50 over years ?
The recent upbeat edition...was it meant to be a ...?? Naw, couldn't be. Or maybe.

Drop PPSMI only at primary school level.

The other day, a friend just lamented his son's plight when he will be in Form 4 in three years time. Yes, he's in Form 1 now and both Maths & Science are taught in English; come 2012 and presto!, it will be in Bahasa Malaysia again (or is it Bahasa Melayu? er...).
The Govt has been flip-flopping the PPSMI issue and the ultimate guinea pigs are our budding future leaders of the country. Of course, all these smack of political and racial undertones which could have been a win-win situation if PPSMI has been allowed to be continued at the secondary schools.
As it is, both the Malays and Chinese ( and to a certain extent, the Indians) wanted to retain their mother tongues and thought it would be better and easier for their kids to study in their mother tongues.
One thing though, the Govt went one step further and will drop PPSMI altogether all the way till Form Six. Then the Govt just announced that the Universities will carry on as usual in the English language.
My personal observation and experience tells me that the people who are going to suffer are the Malay students. Traditionally, most non-Malay students have propensities to do well in multi-languages, given their unique situation in a multi-racial Malaysia. They have to converse with their Malays friends in Bahasa, to their Indian friends in English and to their Chinese friends in Mandarin or the various Chinese dialects! I have interviewed scores of job applicants in the private sectors and sad to say, even with the current PPSMI policy, most of the Malay graduate (at tertiary level) applicants did not present themselves well in English ( in a score of 1 to 10, 10 being the most proficient in the English language, 98% of the Malay applicants marked 3~4 ). Of course, there is no problem in speaking in our Bahasa but the fact remains that in the private sector, most of the dealings and documentations are in English. We deal with the Japanese, Italians, Americans, British, Chinese, etc all in English ( and you wonder why these foreigners also deal with us in English, right?) and it would not benefit the employer and their business if it were not so. This is the real business world.

Unless one is looking for a Govt job.

I say the Govt has erred in dropping PPSMI at the secondary and tertiary educational levels.
maybe there's still time to reverse the decision ,before 2012.

The Taking of the PELHAM123

Aiyahhh!!!!!!Really have no time these days. Just reading those Malaysia Today, Rocky's Bru,Uncle Lim,Malaysian Insider,Nut Graph....is enough to make you slumber at 1am.

Last Friday while waiting for my little ballerina, I crept off to check up on The Taking of the PELHAM 123. My, it was suspense all the way from start till the end. Didn't have time to pee eventhough the bladder was full to the brim. John Travolta was a real crazy bastard, but anyone knows why he wanted to die at Denzel Washington's hand?? Washington who? That guy was damn so bulky I nearly couldn't recognise him. Can't remember when was the last time i saw his movie. In reverse, Travolta looked fit to me. Couldn't see his stomach, which the director did a good job of hiding.

Well PELHAM was about 3 psychos who wanted to blackmail the Mayor into parting 10m bucks or else they will kill off the subway hostages, 1 each for each minute delay after time's up. They meant it and i think about 2 poor innocent guys were killed in cold blood. Sic! Actually Travolta was planning on a more than 300m bucks taking from the gold commodity market due to the hostages-taking event.

Why don't you go watch the movie? Save a lot of my time here.

And make sure you pooh first 'coz it's not allowed inside !!!#$

Permatang Pauh - Battle of Reality

I cannot see how BN can take away Permatang Pauh from PKR.

There is no credibility in the BN people :

The latest fiasco is today's petrol price reduction. How can the Minister says one thing on one day, and then hey presto, he contradicts himself the next day. "No, we will not reduce petrol price before the Permatang Pauh by-election just to get the rakyat's votes, it will still be on 1st Sep 08". Come on, this is not the first time, our dear Minister has contradicted himself.

Then poor Lee Chong Wei has to be flown specially all the way down to Permatang Pauh from KL just to get the RM300,000 incentive promised for the Silver medal in the 08 Olympic. Why now? Why not in KL since he is staying there? I would not object if he has got it in Berapit, Bukit Mertajam, his kampong. At least, the Penang Government did the right thing by saying that Lee will get his Datukship after the by-election....hmm, not bad. Announce now & get it later.

Then it's the 8.5% inflation rate just announced by the Statistical Dept, up from 1% in June 08 and by 7.5% since then. If our dear Minister has got his economics correct, he will know that this figure is not going to come down anytime sooner. I know for once, that a certain amount of subsidies must be required for some neccessity items ( I remember learning it in the Economic lessons during my schooldays 35 years ago). Doesn't the Minister know that the huge leap in petrol price increase has caused a knee-jerk reaction resulting in practically consumer goods price increases in practically everything? There's opportunity in these price increases and everybody were jumping into the band-wagon for free, like nobody's business. There's no way, consumer prices are going to come down...ask our friendly hawker friends la. We will have to live with it. Ever wonder why prices are so high in Japan, USA and the likes? At least, they are living in the first world.



Permatang Pauh. My vote goes to PKR. It's a vote against the high inflation rate. It's also a vote against the credibility of the BN actions.

Come on Datuk, whose legs are you pulling?

The latest petrol hike has been coming for a long time. With all the buzzing activities and buttering-up statements from the various ministers, one would have not been surprised at the price hike announcement. However, the timing is damn lousy and unprofessional-like!
One moment foreign cars at the borders were banned from filling up and then after a few days ( 2 days?), the ban was lifted. What a joke..one would only have to listen to what the Singaporeans have to say and you will get what I mean.
Then we got to hear our very own Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Minister, Datuk Shahrir Abd Samad saying there will be no price hike, at least until August 08. A few days later, after the hike, this is what the same guy has to say, "..I have confidence that it's not going to go up...". Come on, my dear Minister, whose legs are you pulling? At least tell us you were left out in the information stream by your boss, but then politicians seldom admit so. Where do they hide their faces then?
And then the Govt has the cheek to compare our price with neigbouring Singapore and Thailand! Why not compare with the Gulf States ( gas price from RM0.38 to RM1.19 per litre), Iran (RM0.35 per litre), Nigeria (RM0.32 per litre) or Venezuela (RM0.16 per litre)!! After all, we are a net oil exporting country too.
Come August, what's your bet?

I wonder whether the friendly Hokkien mee guy down the corner will reduce the bowl of mee when petrol price goes down one day?

Blinded to reduce expenses----Penny Wise Pound Foolish

In the mad craze to cut cost, it is never wise to reduce overhead expenses unnecesarrily. Have you ever heard of the maxim,'Penny Wise & Pound Foolish'? - Save on the minor & chicken feed expenses & spend extravagantly or waste on foolish and idiotic projects.
Penny Wise
How much does saving on photstat papers, delaying intake of key personnels, switching off lightings, etc contribute to overall expenses reduction?
Pound Foolish
And how much does re-doing of entire office due to faulty design or materials used, and how much does flying in a bunch of technicians from overseas to repair machineries , contribute to overall expenses reduction?

Sometime increasing the expenses works the reverse-you actually increase your profit, which is why you wanted to reduce expenses in the first place!

See this link.
http://www.globeinvestor.com/servlet/WireFeedRedirect?cf=GlobeInvestor/config&vg=BigAdVariableGenerator&date=20061214&archive=cnw&slug=C7264
Dectron announced a 3rd qtr increase of gross profit margin YOY despite a huge increase of administrative & selling expenses due to higher shipping / freight cost & rising depreciation / amortising deferred costs. Revenue for 1st 9 months up USD6.3million or 17.6% YOY, the growth attributed to doubling sales & cost reduction effort.

Read my lips........reducing expenses is not the same as reducing costs, although you may need to reduce expenses to reduce costs. Huh? Forget about what I have just said. Some people never learn.
Increase productivity by all means. You will get more for the same, which means you don't reduce expenses but still get higher revenue ( & thus higher profit, hopefully.....unless the finance people have bungled in their costing!)
Reduce direct materials cost. Localise your direct materials if cheaper. Or if you cannot ( 'cos materials cost keep rising these days!!), increase your selling price & sell more. More is more. More is more profit.

So if you reduce expenses by RM10,000 per month and gross profit is still in the red, compared to you increase expenses by RM50,000 per month and revenue / gross profit increase two-fold, which is better? You don't need a seven-year-old to teach you simple arithmetic, do you?

Increasing your profit in lieu of reducing your expenses, which seems convincing? Examples: if you don't have sufficient people to sell your products, or if don't have sufficient stocks to make your products, or if don't have sufficient products to sell (??) ........enough said.

If you still don't get it, get your head check again!!

Is P-D-C-A outmoded?

I first heard of the PDCA cycle 25 years ago.

I have not heard of it for at least 6 years, until recently when a funny thing happened & any grandfather would tell you they suck eggs better than you...for one thing, any grandfather would tell you they have lost their wisdom teeth a long time ago, while yours are just starting to grow.

If anybody tells you the basis of the PDCA cycle is continuous improvement, i.e." improvement without interruption", then whatever you do now may have become outmoded if you have not changed recently.

Has the PDCA cycle itself changed or improved since 25 years ago?

Continuous improvement will create a "change fatigue"....you would become disillusioned, disenchanted & confused, you might even stop following the changes altogether.

I think there are three factors to perform a mission:-
1. PEOPLE
2. PROCESS
3. PRODUCT

If people are not motivated, will change or improvement occur?

Definitely, change requires people, process & product. If people are not a company's asset, then why PDCA? Why not CACES..Come Act Cheque Eat Sleep? If people are a company's asset, the company must ensure its appreciation , or else they will depreciate & eventually be writtten off as zero-value before the end of their life-cycles.

What Shewart & Deming meant should be continual improvement, i.e. a cycle of improvements with pauses to consolidate the changes. It is then subject to Checking or Study that there is actually an improvement BEFORE the next change or improvement activity be started again.
That's why ISO recognises this & corrected ISO9000 to ISO9004-2000 mentioning specifically "continual improvement".

Don't you think Do & Act are the same? Check your dictionary for their meanings....sometime its just for want of a term. I think ACT should really mean IMPROVE or CORRECT or RECTIFY when failing to achieve the desired results.

Why didn't Deming or Shewart improve PDCA if they are so good?
Does PDCA cycle have to be circular? You were taught so? Is it possible ,just think for a moment, for you to DO something without a Plan but with just a "thought" or"idea"? Have you ever done something sucessfully without a Plan? Think hard...hard....hard...now you are sleeping..you are in slumberland....sleep,sleep,sleep...zzzzzzzzzzzz. SNAP!
I sometime just do the improvement straightaway when I see something different on the spot.

PDCA works on the basis of the Japanese incremental continuous (small) changes. It is no good to make a sudden big change......but this is what the US advocates- a sudden big change to effect an impact on the overall improvement. REFORMASI ! What the Chinese ( PRC) always said ( I heard it a thousand time while in China) - "Kai Ge".

In PDCA, no people are mentioned, people are not a company's asset. It is assumed that people will use and make it happen. What Shewart & Deming did not know was that most people are not motivated or interested in improvement if there are no benefits to be reaped.

In ISO14000, the first three elements are actually the PLAN, followed by the DO until the "monitoring" element when the CHECK starts & ends at ACT at the last element (Mgmt Review). One cannot achieve the ISO14000 status if all elements are not strictly adhered to but can one achieve the desired results without performing the the first three elements?

QCC circles? QCC circles work on the pillar of the PDCA cycle. If a company has active QCC activities 13 years ago, would the PDCA cycle be obsolete now?

Quo vadis? Pension.