Job Happiness Among Local Youth in Sabah and Sarawak Towards Working in Oil Palm Plantation

Abstract

The rapid expansion of oil palm plantation in Malaysia in 1990, 2.03 million hectares to 5.73 million hectares in 2016 caused required high labour intensive in this sector. Sabah and Sarawak were the main contributor of oil palm plantation which represented 33.30 percent among the states of Malaysia. More than 78% of labours (Azman, 2014) in these sectors mainly came from Indonesia, Bangladesh and Philippines and most of the local youth refused to participate in an oil palm plantation due to the working environment compared to manufacturing sector which more conducive. Hence, this contributes instability and unsustainability in the oil palm industry due to more dependence on foreign labour. The negative perception of local youth on nature of work and social status as a 4D job (Difficult, Dangerous, Dirty and Demeaning) made this working in oil palm plantation is the last choice of job among those who were still working and already left from oil palm plantation (Zaki et al., 2015). Thus, the objective of this paper is to explore the level of job happiness among oil palm plantation local youth which still working and those who left in this both states and analysing the factors contribute to their satisfaction and happiness level. The purposive randomised sampling among the 98 local youths aged ranging from 16 to 40 years old which was considered as the youth category and staying within the location 5 kilometres radius within the plantation area those who are still working and working before in this oil palm sector. The Partial Least Square was used to analyse the satisfaction and happiness level among this category of this group. The result found those who left from working in the plantation sector showed more significant value compared to those who are still working. This showed the construction reflects the satisfaction and happiness level if the plantation sector fulfilled the intrinsic factors of job satisfaction and happiness.