Youth entrepreneurship in Malaysia

Abstract

Issues of unemployment in the local economy amidst current uncertainties in global market demand and economic crisis situations have led to the need for any society or its communities at large to find opportunities in self-employment, including by the youths (Schoof 2006). Therefore, the current limited career options and lack of independence in wage employment have thus prompted efforts to seek greener pastures in self- employment in the form of entrepreneurial ventures. Youths have increasingly response this challenge, including the ones in Malaysia. In Malaysia, the level of youth engagement in self-employment in the form of entrepreneurship is not as high as one would imagine and expect. This is rather alarming as youths are always regarded as central players for potential for individual and social transformation. Therefore, more so in current times of economic crisis, it is imperative for the society to draw initiatives that could facilitate youth entrepreneurship. That could prepare the youths for a career (self-employment) and being productive and thwart uncertainties in the global market, especially smaller economies. Despite that, there are some youths in Malaysia who are known to be actively and even successfully involved in business as entrepreneurs. Curious with this phenomenon, the authors of this paper embarked on an exploratory study on youth entrepreneurship in small and medium sized businesses in Malaysia. 531 youth entrepreneurs from several kinds of businesses in the Klang Valley were surveyed. The respondents were selected using purposive sampling and snowballing sampling method. This paper shall discuss some findings concerning the profiles of the youth entrepreneurs that reveal their personal and business characteristics. The authors hope that their research findings would shed some light on patterns of commonality among the youths in terms of the characteristics, and consequently, provide some explanations on the potential means to alleviate the problem of the lack of entrepreneurship and unemployment among the Malaysian youths.