There's a number in The Star's labour force piece this week that's easy to skim past. In 2013, workers aged 15 to 29 made up 35% of Malaysia's labour force. By 2025 that was 32%.
Three percentage points. Doesn't sound like much. It is.
1. What's actually happening
The share of workers aged 35 to 44 went the other way, from 23% to 27%. In raw numbers that group grew by close to half. Meanwhile the 20 to 24 bracket grew 18% and the 25 to 29 bracket grew 10%.
So young Malaysians aren't vanishing. There are more of them working than there were. They're just being outpaced by the cohort ahead of them, which is getting bigger and staying put.
That's a workforce that's ageing in place. And it's a workforce where the rungs above you are occupied by people who aren't moving.
2. The bit that should worry you
Here's the figure that reframes the whole thing. Skill-related underemployment hit 1.96 million workers in Q3 2025. Among employed graduates, 35.5% are holding jobs below the level of their diploma or degree.
Read that again. More than a third of Malaysians who finished tertiary education are doing work that doesn't need it.
That's not a pipeline problem. It's not a training problem. You can't train your way out of a shortage of jobs that require training.
3. What the economists said
Universiti Malaya's Rajah Rasiah put it plainly. The trend is "detrimental to Malaysia as the country seeks to upgrade its economic activity to higher value-added sectors."
Dr Wan Arnidawati Wan Abdullah of the Malaysian Research Institute on Ageing went further, and this is the line worth keeping: "The larger problem is that the economy has not created enough good jobs and career opportunities for everyone."
Not enough good jobs. Not enough graduates, not enough skills, not enough hustle. Not enough good jobs.
HELP University's Chung Tin Fah tied it to the obvious: "Malaysia needs to progress to higher value-added goods and services if it wants to move out of the middle-income trap."
4. Why this keeps getting told backwards
The usual framing is that young Malaysians are picky. Won't do manual work. Want to be influencers. You've heard it at every family gathering since about 2015.
But a 35.5% graduate underemployment rate isn't a story about pickiness. It's a story about an economy that produces more qualified people than it produces jobs for qualified people, and then acts surprised when those people either take work beneath them or leave.
The brain drain conversation usually starts with Singapore. It should start here.
5. What to watch
Budget 2027 is tabled on 9 October. Anwar has said the M40 is a priority. Watch whether any of it addresses job creation at the top end rather than relief at the bottom, because relief doesn't fix a 1.96 million underemployment figure. Only demand for skilled labour does.
Three percentage points over twelve years. That's the shape of a country not quite growing into itself.
Source: Young workers' share in labour force declining, The Star, 24 August 2026, by Diyana Pfordten.