They said the lack of infrastructure had discouraged the creation of jobs suitable for local skill sets.
Sabah’s youth unemployment was at 17.3% last month, well above the 13.9% rate recorded nationwide by the department of statistics. These potential workers are aged between 15 and 24.
Yeo and Chin told FMT the underdevelopment of infrastructure made for an environment that was not conducive to generating economic opportunities.
“If you want to create economic activity through the agricultural or manufacturing sectors, there simply aren’t any areas that have been optimised,” said Yeo. “There aren’t enough industrial zones or land that has been set aside for farms.”
For high-skilled workers specifically, she said, the federal government had not done enough to encourage companies to open up shop in Sabah. “And it’s hard for Sabah to do so on its own.”
Talent is forced to move elsewhere as a result, either to the peninsula or overseas, in order to avoid skills-based unemployment, an issue that has plagued much of the country during the pandemic
Chin, who is the deputy president of MTUC’s Sabah chapter, pointed to the lack of “basic, fundamental” infrastructure that made creating economic activities outside of Kota Kinabalu difficult, hampering young people in rural areas looking to find quality jobs.
“Many areas do not have paved roads and are only accessible by four-wheel drive vehicles,” she said. “If you are more than 50km from Kota Kinabalu, a lot of the roads don’t have street lights. Most of the rural areas still do not have sufficient internet access.
“These rural areas are not equipped for companies to come and set up operations.”
She said the lack of internet access was the biggest barrier to income for rural communities, which would be able to create their own opportunities despite the lack of infrastructure if given the means to do so.
“Many of these people own plots of land. They need to be empowered and assisted to start their own small farms to cultivate the products that only exist in their areas.
“If they could promote and sell these crops online, they could create a market for their products.”
Chin agreed that without jobs matching the qualifications of high-skilled workers, graduates were likely to leave for better work on the peninsula, especially since starting salaries in the state could be as low as RM1,800 for white collar jobs.