Engineering losing lustre due to negative perception

The Star

2 days ago

PETALING JAYA: Malaysia may see massive shortages of engineers for all fields in the coming years if no concrete steps are taken to address the unfavourable perception of engineering jobs, warns industry stakeholders.
Institution of Engineers Malay­sia president Prof Dr Jeffrey Chiang Choong Luin said the negative perception of engineering jobs has begun to take a toll on youth interest in related fields.
He said this, combined with tumbling interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects in schools, have resulted in a noticeably lower enrolment of new students in engineering courses this year.
'It has become a widespread perception among a lot of the youth that engineers are paid low salaries compared to those in business, banking, finance, marketing, law and economics.
'Another long-perceived view is that engineers work with their hands in dirty, dangerous and difficult jobs, which are undesirable for the younger generation.
'This perception has resulted in me observing low enrolment in mechanical, mechatronics, chemical and even civil engineering disciplines for this year so far compared to previous years,' he said when contacted.
In June last year, Science, Technology and Innovation Min­is­ter Chang Lih Kang said Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia students taking science and mathematics subjects had declined over the last six years, with subjects like Additional Mathematics seeing a decline of 17.37% in student registration from 2018 to 2023.
In two separate written parliamentary replies, the Education Ministry revealed that the number of students enrolled for science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) streams dropped from 47% in 2020 to 40.94% in 2022, though the figures rebounded to 45.73% in 2023 and 50.83% in 2024.
Chiang said this decrease could see a massive drop of graduate engineers in these fields in the next five to six years, resulting in a shortfall of between 25% and 50% in engineers for all fields across the country.
To help address this, he called on the government to consider raising remunerations for technical staff in the civil service, which would help dispel salary concerns plaguing the profession.
'They should also widely advertise the ample opportunities for career advancement in the civil service, especially for technocrats to serve in the upper echelons of government,' he added.
Malaysian Association of Engi­neers president Datuk Feroz Hanif Mohamed Ahmad also expressed similar concerns, noting that the negative perception of engineering jobs has been a result of poor enforcement of the legal minimum wage for skilled engineers.
'I have heard of many smaller companies offering salaries of only RM1,500 to RM2,000 for new engineering graduates, cases of which are then spread by word of mouth or online among youth.
'This ends up discouraging many of them from even consi­de­ring engineering as a career path, even from a young age, due to this misguided perception of the industry.
'This could potentially create an entire generation of youth that are disinterested with the fields of engineering,' he said, calling on the government to enact stricter minimum wage enforcement on such companies.
In this regard, he also called on the government to publicly set a specific minimum wage for engineers to at least RM3,000.
'This can be done by providing incentives for engineering companies to increase their minimum salary, maybe through tax rebates as an example,' he added.
Feroz Hanif said there was also a need to increase consultation fees for engineering-related requ­ests through amendments to the Registration Of Engineers Act, which would help open up more employment opportunities for engineers after graduation to become consultants.
The two concerns are not unfounded as the latest 2022 annual report by the Board of Engineers Malaysia found the country only had 212,713 registe­r­ed engineers, which includes technologists.
This means the country's engineer-to-population ratio is at a significant low of about one to 163, which pales in comparison to developed countries like Germa­ny, where the ratio is at one to 100.