By Johnny S H Liew, Anak Jati Sabah
KOTA KINABALU: The announcement that Sabah’s overall unem+ployment rate declined to 5.5 per cent in the first quarter of 2026 should not be presented as proof that the GRS Government has successfully resolved Sabah’s employment crisis.
A headline percentage, standing alone, tells the people very little.
The unemployment rate may decline because more people have obtained proper employment. But it may also decline because frustrated jobseekers have stopped looking for work, entered informal or subsistence activities, or migrated to Peninsular Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and elsewhere in search of opportunities unavailable in their own State.
For many young Sabahans, migration is not evidence of successful government policy. It is evidence that Sabah’s economy has failed to provide them with a future at home.
The State Government must therefore answer the following fundamental questions:
How many new, permanent and properly paid jobs were actually created in Sabah during the first quarter of 2026?
How many of those jobs were secured by Sabahans?
In which districts and economic sectors were those jobs created?
What were the wages, employment conditions and duration of those jobs?
How many Sabahans left the State to seek employment elsewhere during the same period?
How many participants in government training and reskilling programmes subsequently obtained permanent employment?
These questions are especially important because the Minister’s own figures reveal unemployment rates of 25.6 per cent among those aged 15 to 19, 36.9 per cent among those aged 20 to 24, and 16.2 per cent among those aged 25 to 29.
An unemployment rate of 36.9 per cent among young people aged 20 to 24 is not a success story. It is a serious social and economic warning.
The Government’s familiar references to upskilling, reskilling, career carnivals, strategic partnerships and the creative economy are insufficient unless they are supported by measurable outcomes.
Sabah does not merely need more training programmes. Training people for jobs that do not exist will not solve unemployment.
Sabah needs substantial investment in downstream oil and gas industries, manufacturing, agro-processing, fisheries, renewable energy, digital industries, logistics and other productive sectors capable of creating stable and well-paid employment.
The State must also address weak infrastructure, unreliable water and electricity supplies, poor internet connectivity and excessive bureaucratic obstacles that discourage serious investment and industrial development.
The true measure of success is not whether the Government can announce a lower statistical percentage.
The true measure is whether Sabah’s young people can find dignified, secure and adequately paid employment in their own homeland without being forced to leave their families and communities.
Until the Government discloses the number, quality and location of the jobs supposedly created, the claim of employment progress remains incomplete and unconvincing.
Sabah’s young people deserve real opportunities, not percentages plucked from the air and programmes repeatedly announced without transparent evidence of results.
