Hmmm... the article seems to suggest that Malays are discriminated against in the private sector but paradoxically more Chinese migrate out of Malaysia than Malays. If Chinese is so much favored upon then they wouldnt try to leave the country en masse...

My 2 cents

1) Top performing Malays are the most highly sought after and the most highly paid in many industries. Why?

[a]Scarcity of good quality Malay employees.
[ Because many private companies in Malaysia are not excactly private, they either have customers that are linked to the public sector or are heavily owned by EPF/PNB etc. So Malays are highly preferrable in situations that you need to deal with the public sector people.
[c] There is an explicit quota for Malays to be hired. Of course they would want to hire the best Malays to fill the quota.

I've been rejected for a job purely because they needed a Malay headcount to fill the job. So... can't help it.

2) There are many above average Chinese. For many reasons, the quality of the graduates on average are of better quality. This might be arguable but at least based on what I see in various companies - from MNC to chinaman. Our team tried to hire Malay as much as possible. Honestly. It was better for our business. But it wasn't easy. Our team now has 50% Malay and these are really highly sought after peopl in the industry.

3) On the issue of discrimination... I think one of the problems is that there are too many fresh graduates now and too few jobs that grad think are suitable. There's a misalignment in what market needs and what market is producing now. Hence, good jobs are scarce. People who don't make the cut feel bitter about it. It is easy to resolve that discrimination was main reason why one couldnt get a job. While this might be true for some cases, I'm sure some chinese bosses would as much as possible construct a chinese only team. But, the same could be said for the other races as well. This is not unique to Malaysia. I see a banking team in Singapore (foreign name) trying to construct a team that is filled only by Indians too. Many would think that they discriminate agaisnt the local Chinese in SG. But in fact, it's because the indians are willing to work much harder, are smart and are willing to accept a smaller pay package. So, when jobs are scarce. Companies can afford to pay less and hire more above average candidates in general regardless of race. Many average candidates will feel discriminatd against.

4) Try not to be average... The fresh graduates in Malaysia has a lot of work to do to catch up with their peers, i.e.. Singaporean. No point comparing against other aseans countries with much lower labor cost. If you work hard enough, get a good degree, a set of good results, have good English proficiency and a good attitude, you won't have to worry about being discriminated by 1 or 2 companies because of your skin color. Many others will want to hire you.

I've seen so many appalling CVs and coverletters, you won't believe it. Example 1: CV with 1/4 of it filled with a name in 36 sized fonts, example 2: cover letter that started with which hospital she was being delivered, example 3: CV and cover letter that come in power point format.... Most of them are from Malay candidates unfortunately. But that being said, there are more Malay fresh graduate applicants. It's a pity that their Universities haven't taught them simple skills to apply for jobs. These universities didnt even expose them to channels in which they could get some tips. Some were not even aware that English is the common language in a workplace and hence asked for interviews to be conducted in Malay.

5) On our education system and other policies that are set based on racial criteria... sigh. It's been around for ages and must be addressed one day. I believe equality means that everyone should deserve the same rights not dependable on their race. But these policy changes will take a long time to sort out. As individuals, you can vote or join the politics to express your views or leave the country in the long run. In the meantime, work on the other areas in which you can improve on if you decide to stay and fight for a job in Malaysia.

I truely hope for a 1Malaysia someday. A great concept by Mckinsey but being misused nowadays. Egalitarianism brings prosperity and peace.

Sadly, although the aim of the policies were to help the majority group. these policies were short term in effect. They were designed this way because they would have achieved the best effect on their political career. So the elites of the majority group have, at the expense of the people whom they were representing, risen in their political career.

It's sad that the majority group isn't aware of it because the so called policies have only helped them in the short term. When the ill effects set in many many years later, most of them won't remember the root cause of the problem. Which is that the affirmative actions have caused not only them to suffer but also every single working class Malaysian regardless of races. The policies have resulted in Malays still not feeling happy about where they are now and disgruntled other races feeling discriminated against and try to flee to another country. The policies were so poorly designed that they have structurally divided Malaysians and left no winners for any races.

And Malaysians are still not mature enough to understand what policies are right for them in the long run even up till today. You have fresh graduates thinking that fairness means if someone else have a job that I want means I deserve one too. You have government servants who pressured the government to reverse a meritocracy system that the government wanted to implement for better efficiency. Fairness to these people mean getting the same reward regardless of the amount of effort one spent. These people are very ill informed and ignorant. They don't realise that the "cause" of their actions in wanting short term gain policies have resulted in later problems - the "effects". Can we blame them? we probably can partially. But to a large extent, they were never exposed or educated on voting for the right policies for their future generation and themselves. It is difficult to suddenly lift the awareness of such a big group of population in a short time.

I think the God/karma talk is too harsh and probably unfair to them. I don't think the majority of Malays tries to structurally exploit the other races. Rotten apples are everywhere of course, there are evil people in every race. I believe inherently, they would want to be nice and fair too. But the constant misguidance in the right way to think, lacking the real understanding of economics, politics and social science knowledge, have caused them to feel that their opportunities were being taken away from them. Some also possess a false sense of entitlement which is bewildering. I don't think that they will feel victimised in the current society if they were to have access and understand the truth of what the policies have done to us.

@dreamer, your karma talk suggests that when one has done something bad, one would receive a punishment. I think this is not applicable here and probably spread unnecessary hatred. I don't think the Malays unscrupulously picked these set of policies because they ended up not being winners in the end too. In the early days, Chinese were probably ultra proctective of their trade interest and had some discriminating unsaid rules marginalising other races too. Let's just cut the cr*p about finding who to blame. The bottom line is that these policies aren't helping anyone. Let's have a change and pick a set that at least have some collective benefits.