Factors That Influence Youth’s Decision to Work in the Palm Oil Field: The Case of FELDA

Authors

  • Nooraisah Katmon , Nor Hanani Ahamad Rapani , Rosmini Ismail , Hartini Jaafar , Mohd Abdullah Jusoh , Omar Al Farooque , Mohd Adib Ismail , Zam Zuriyati Mohamad , Nur Syazwani Mohd Nawi

Abstract

Our study empirically examines the association between factors that influence youth to work in oil palm field in
Malaysia. We acknowledge that our study is important in the light of government decision to import more foreign
worker in order to fulfill jobs in 4Ds classification (dirty, dangerous, demeaning and difficult) including palm oil
plantation, construction and manufacturing. We focus on the youth’s decision – whether they want to work or not to
work in palm oil field – due to several reason. First and foremost, we recognise that oil palm is one of the most
important resources to Malaysia, and its sustainability largely depends on the behaviour of future generation.
Second, we concentrate on the factors that influence the decision of the youth whether to work or not to work in palm
oil field in order to address the problem on why majority of the youth are reluctant to be involved in palm oil
plantation. Third, we study the perception of the youth on the job related to palm oil field. Our sample comprise of
278 youth around the State of Johor, which is recognised as the second largest states with palm oil field in Malaysia.
Our findings demonstrate that personal satisfaction, government policy and economic benefit increase the youth
extrinsic factor, while workplace environment reduce the respondent extrinsic factor. In regard to the intrinsic
factor, our results exhibit that personal satisfaction, government policy and regulation improve respondent’s
intrinsic factor, while job status reduce youth’s intrinsic factor. We suggest that government should provide
attractive scheme and rebranding the job in the palm oil plantation in order to attract youth participation in the
palm oil field. The findings from this study will be beneficial to the policymakers in solving labour issues in palm oil
field by training more Malaysian workers to be ready to work in palm oil plantation rather than importing more
foreign worker

Published

2020-03-31

Issue

Section

Articles