' employment opportunities are generally encouraging with both total employment and labour force growing at a rate of 3.2%/ As a result unemployment as a percentage of labour force is envisaged to remain low at 3.55% for the year, the 14th consecutive year of full employment for Malaysia.

'The overall labour force participation rate is expected to remain relatively high at 66% in 2005 (2004: 65.5%). Participation from the younger work force, particularly those in the 15-24 years age group, has shown an increasing trend. In terms of gender, both male and female participation rate increased marginally to 85.2% (2004: 85.1%) and at 45.8% (2004: 45.7%), respectively. Although female participation rate is lower, Malaysia has one of the highest female participation rates among developing countries. The proportion of labour force with tertiary education is projected to increase from 18.1% in 2004 to 19% in 2005, reflecting higher enrolment of students in institutions of higher learning, as well as expanding tertiary education and training facilities."

The above was taken from the Ministry of Finance's Economic Report for 2005/06. As expected, the report is highly biased towards the 'feel good' stories.