I refer to the Bernama report Malaysia negara kedua terendah catat kadar pengangguran .

I think it is timely for Abdul Rahman Bakar, or any minister or deputy minister, to question and verify information they receive before sharing the same with the public.

He said: '... tahun ini hanya 3.4% atau 25,000 orang daripada 24 juta penduduk negara ini yang menganggur dan bilangannya dijangka akan turun dengan perlaksanaan Rancangan Malaysia Ke-9 dan Misi Nasional, yang akan memberi lebih peluang pekerjaan.

Two errors:

One: Based on EPU's figures, the unemployment rate for Malaysia in 2006 (total unemployment /total labour force) is 3.5% and not 3.4%.

Two: 3.4% is not equivalent to 25,000 out of 24 million. It's 816,000.

Other comments:

(i) Whilst the relative unemployment rate in Malaysia has been relatively low and constant at 3.5% since 2002, absolute unemployment has been on the rise during the same period given the increase in the total labour force from10.06 million in 2002 to 11.55 million in 2006. Which means that the total unemployment figure has jumped from 352,240 in 2002 to 404,075 in 2006 (a rise of 51,835 or 14.71%).

The above warrants serious attention especially when the total active working population (aged between 15 to 64) represents 63.4% of the country's total population in 2006. This group is also the biggest component with average total population representation of 62.7% for the period of 2000-2006.

(ii) Unemployment is a structural and permanent issue in any economy. Hence, policy makers should not take the simplistic diagnostic route of just answering the 'what' question and then proceed with a short-term resolution that will only address the symptoms and not the real problem. Policy-makers should also go for the 'why' question and understand the determinants of the demand and supply of jobs.

(iii) A short term resolution like creating jobs within the public service, though highly impactful, is purely short-term and does not have a sustainability power for job creation. For how long and for how many times will the government absorb unemployed graduates into the civil service? On this note, I would like to refer to my earlier suggestions .