THE young, like the more aged Malaysians, do like to influence and inform the decisions that affect their lives.
It must have been good news to some 10 million Malaysians aged between 15 and 30 when the government agreed to the Malaysian Youth Council's proposal to form a youth advisory group to advise the prime minister on all matters of the young.
A young senator is also in the works. There are at least two reasons why the concerns of the youth must reach the centre of power.
First, 10 million is a sizeable segment given the population of Malaysia.
Second, they will be the future of this country. Perhaps this will make them better decision-makers and leaders.
True, a youth advisory group may not be the only way to pipe the voice of the young to the centre of power.
There are 193 countries in the world and there may be as many ways to get the youth to influence decisions that affect them but what is critical is to get their concerns acted upon.
The youth advisory group may want to have the ear of the prime minister on at least three concerns. One is underemployment. Loss of jobs is a worry given the damage caused by Covid-19 to the economy but what should be equally, if not more, troubling is underemployment of such talent.
Reports by Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM), Khazanah Research Institute (KRI) and others make clear the mismatch between the number of fresh graduates entering the labour market and the number of jobs requiring such tertiary qualifications.
While our economy appears to be headed the low-skill way, our universities — and there are 21 public and 38 private universities — continue to turn out tertiary temps.
Between them, the universities produce 51,000 graduates every year, more than half of which remain "unemployed" for a year.
Unfortunately, our statistics, official or otherwise, do not distinguish between "unemployed" and "underemployed". There is a distinction with a difference here that policymakers often miss.
Stories of graduates with bachelor degrees signing up for postgraduate degrees while job hunting are not uncommon.
Some even finish their PhDs, joining 5,000 of their number every year. In three years, we will have 60,000 PhDs and not that many universities or research institutions to employ them.
If the graduates do succeed in getting employed, they face a second problem: low and stagnant wages. KRI in its 2018 "School-to-Work Survey" said as much. BNM had this to say in its 2018 Annual Report: "Malaysian workers are paid less than workers in benchmark economies even after accounting for differences in productivity."
Employers, chief among them, the Malaysian Employers Federation, remain unconvinced. Like it or not, Malaysia needs to rethink its cheap labour policy.
Finally, there is a pool of young rebels without a cause, Mat Rempit, who are said to number some 200,000 throughout the country.
There may be more as peer gets peer to swell their number. Left to themselves, they have become a national problem.
There is no easy solution. If there were, it would have long disappeared. Iceland may offer a solution.
It has managed to get its teens to say no to drugs. These three may be a earful for the prime minister but the youth advisory group will do well to raise them.
And having raised them, it must see to it that they are acted upon. Thus are the lives of our youth influenced.