KUALA LUMPUR — Mr Mohd Adam Senawi had a job as an engineer in the oil and gas industry, but the sector’s instability saw him retrenched in 2014.

He then decided to try his hand at becoming a unit trust agent and later, as an insurance agent as well.

Selling unit trust and insurance schemes is becoming an attractive option for young Malaysian adults in order to earn a living, although it is far from the careers they dreamed of with the degrees they earned in university.

Mr Adam said he struggled for more than a month as he was married and had children.

“When I had a regular job, I knew when my salary would be out but now, my income is based on commissions,” the 32-year-old told The Malaysian Insight, adding that his wife was the family’s sole breadwinner for the first three months.

“In terms of job satisfaction, I was more satisfied when I was an engineer. But before I chose to be a full-time unit trust and insurance agent, I also applied for jobs at other companies but there wasn’t any response,” said the graduate in electrical engineering.

Mr Adam is among the roughly 5,000 insurance agents in Malaysia aged between 21 and 31 registered with the General Insurance Association of Malaysia (PIAM) in 2014.

There were 5,085 agents in this age bracket in 2014, 2015 (5,125) and 2016 (4,819).

There are even 176 agents below 21 in 2014, 2015 (219) and 2016 (221). The minimum age to be an insurance agent is 18.

Another young agent, Mr Mohamed Hafizulah Zainal Abidin, 27, said he job-hopped for six months before deciding to become an insurance agent.

“I had studied electronics in technical school and wanted to continue my studies in the same field and then worked in that field after graduating.

“I sent resumes to JobStreet and asked my friends for help to get a job, but I got no reply from anyone for an interview,” said Mr Hafizulah, who has worked as an agent with Takaful Zurich insurance since 2012.

The hardest part about being a full-time agent is being shunned by friends who have a negative perception of insurance agents and who stopped hanging out with him for fear he would attempt to sell them insurance.

“(Some friends) would ask, ‘Are you doing this full time?’ and couldn’t believe that I was. There were also some who rejected my invitation to hang out when I didn’t even have the intention to sell insurance to them.”

His first commission was just RM62 (S$20.90), but a year after becoming a full-time agent, Mr Hafizulah felt that his decision had borne fruit.

Mr Adam and Mr Hafizulah both say they earn more than their previous incomes and their peers at university or technical college.

As a technician, Mr Hafizulah could earn no more than RM4,500 a month, depending on the employer.

“But now my income is higher than if I were to work as a technician. With my current monthly pay, I can get married, have children and provide for the family,” he said.

Mr Adam said he now earned about RM7,000 in combined income as both a unit trust agent and an insurance agent, more than what he made as an engineer. And among the better trade-offs with his old job is greater flexibility and more time for his family.

YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT, JOB MISMATCH

Mr Adam and Mr Hafizulah typify the youth unemployment and job mismatch problem in Malaysia, where some 40 per cent of graduates were jobless or worked in a field they did not study for, according to Higher Education Ministry figures in 2013.

Higher Education Minister Idris Jusoh said according to the graduate survey system (GSS), there were 54,103 university graduates who were unemployed for six months after graduating in 2016.

And when graduates do get jobs, 36 per cent quit their jobs in their first year for a range of reasons, from better prospects and salaries to a lack of job satisfaction.

Nine out of 10 Malaysian youths also said the average wage is low, a view most prevalent among Indians, according to a survey last year.

While the average wage in Malaysia is expected to grow by 3.8 per cent this year, salaries are also not keeping up with inflation.

The Malaysian Employers Federation (MEF) said it is a loss to both graduates as well as those who funded their education when young adults work in jobs outside their fields of study.

Graduates have to be retrained in their new career and whatever they learnt while in university or college cannot be fully utilised — unrealised investments by the government or parents who funded them, said MEF executive director Shamsuddin Bardan.

“The labour market is quite challenging and getting a proper career is hard today, like engineering, as an example,” said Mr Shamsuddin, who highlighted that nearly 50,000 workers could be laid off this year and fresh graduates entering the market this year would have to consider taking multiple jobs.

“So, in this kind of situation, whatever graduates end up doing, it is more to get experience first, even if it is not their career choice or what they studied for.”

However, he said the country would suffer if its graduates are unable to contribute in their fields.

“We could be forced to hire a foreign workforce to fill in employment needs. This does not bode well for the country.

“And in the long term, this also affects (manpower) supply in (certain) fields, as new students would not want to study these fields,” he said, stressing the need for better planning to ensure that graduates found jobs that matched their qualifications. THE MALAYSIAN INSIGHT