FEBRUARY 27 — Long before the dam breaks, few notice the cracks and many ignore them. History notes this regardless if the histrionics at the end compete with the banshees from yore.
Warning bells are set off like dog whistles when earlier this week MEF president Syed Hussain Syed Husman said the country’s talent migration rate in 2024 was 5.5 per cent, outpacing the global average of 3.3 per cent.
Strange considering the scene set on stage.
Malaysia wants to reinvent itself, draw new industry in, piggy-back on data centres and AI craze and leverage China-US trade war, yet worries abound whether its manpower backs the intended renaissance.
It buys the props, and prepares the script without the actors. No shortage of directors.
MEF is the Malaysian Employers’ Federation. Granted, employers are keener on profits than people and seek to squeeze maximum production out of their human resources, their trepidation bodes unwell for the overall economy, that which feeds the masses.
It’s instructive to note that the emphasis is on talents not employees. Unfortunately, not all employees are talents.
It is clever by saying “the more qualified or graduates”. However, too many Malaysian graduates are dissimilar that equating graduates with talents misleads.
A proportion of our graduates are talents, the others mere holders of papers from institutions with access to the national loans system. Malaysia issues papers assiduously, as diligent as it opens institutions which print them.
If the talent migration rate was corrected to only the talents intended by the meaning, then the exit rate possibly is much higher than 5.5 per cent.
In other words, a higher percentage of our competent citizens seek greener pastures elsewhere. Dubai, LA or Melbourne, does it matter?
They are there and not here. Kick off at SRK and end with their kids attending Melbourne Grammar and they shop at Bourke Street Mall.
Too many of our smart ones opt out of Malaysia.
It is ominous since presently the country experiences the largest burst of international and private schools ever — their graduates are more inclined and adept to live elsewhere — and those cracks in the dam are widening far too quickly.
Again, often the talents are mislabelled by race. Fair to assume different from the national demography, as the talent pool has a larger minority representation.
But far more telling, the pool is dominated by those from suburbs, middle-class and from non-Malay speaking homes. They are easily Mun Hong as they could be Faisal.
As seen by the surge of Malay communities in Perth or Auckland.
Keeping them home, is to make it home
The MEF feels a combination of pay, benefits and work conditions dictate departures.
The first two, pay and benefits, are offset by cost of living, you have to earn more in LA to match the costs of living in LA. Pay only goes a distance since it is relative to the locality.
The MEF working lock-step with the government can improve work conditions; the third element, including unionisation, worker protection and progressive laws.
But parallelly, the other matter affects the exit choice for our young. Quality of life.
A day is split by the thirds of work, play and sleep.
Play, or living, is what drives people to subsist and then prosper in one country rather than another.
These, can we call them future people, prefer a permissive society to live in.
Ah, the conservatives are up in arms, concluding the column is asking for nightclubs and bars.
Calm down, numbers show dips in alcohol consumption and also an upsurge for hip coffee shops over pubs.
There are more who prefer more sedated places with other offerings but they still want to be out. To dress in hybrids that do not get nods of approval from the modest nor get cheers of delight from clubbers.
The general Malaysian, the talents most certainly, prefer a more permissive Malaysian society to live in.
One which their privacy is theirs to control, space to live as they will and pursue interests from vintage fairs to short holidays in Seoul, or wall-climbing.
The flip side of their deep desire for personal space, they have a far greater tolerance for other ways.
A higher GDP per capita is not the only reason our young feel comfortable in Krabi or walking along Seoul’s temples. They have become more global. The whole of Kuala Lumpur’s Jalan Sultan is inundated with both halal and decidedly not halal joints.
The Mee Tarik shops alternate with the Hokkien Mee shops, if you know what that means. The outdoor seating mingles without concern as hijab clad patrons are ubiquitous, as are imbibers.
For these worldly beings, heavy-handed censorship and cautious attitudes to culture, events and lifestyles by authorities appear unnecessary.
Just as there are literally tens of tabs open on their browsers at any time, they feel decisions should be with the individual rather than the state.
The young talents yearn to live in Bangsar not Bangi.
Policy makers in a bind, the pleasing game
But here is where theory meets realpolitik.
Politicians deal with all voters, not just talents. One side has built a value proposition on staying on course with traditional values, a stricter translation of scripture to everyday life, therefore in policy-making.
The other does a middling, a chameleon-like act. Relaxed and relenting to the shifts emanating from the world to Malaysia, and with a literal kill-switch handy to compete with their political opponents, claim their policies do not sacrifice the old ways.
The talents are caught in this whirlpool of a dysfunctional identity the country possesses thanks to a “change it as we go and retreat here and there” tone set by the government.
Organically, the country marches to modernity. It would do so also if the other side was in charge except slower.
The Unity Government can choose caution but as the MEF disclosure underlines, there is a global talent hunt.
While nations reject the hungry and desperate cling on to their countries’ metaphorical border fencing, the search for the brightest goes on. They are the engine of growth.
The present government fears being outflanked by Perikatan Nasional.
However, as new evidence indicates, going at it this way is inadequate. The bleeding is intensifying and eviscerating Malaysia’s economy, and the cracks as the analogy follows is at a breakpoint.
This government can go on with its half measures, as an overused cliché goes, democracies are like large football clubs, when their dynamics struggle, they stunt. They can survive even if they fail to thrive.
Thriving requires determination. Future Malaysians want a more permissive Malaysia to continue their investment in their country.
Too many have left, leaving Malaysia as a childhood memory only. It is about to get worse. Uprooting is too easy today and a nation which fails to pay heed to the signs, asks for the inevitable.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
