Increasing retirement age to 65 could kill off young potentials

YOUTHS are now struggling in the challenging decade of unemployment, which attending hundreds of job interviews a week doesn't guarantee one to even be employed by an employer.

As a millennial who used to face rejections of job applications during my after-graduation era in 2013, I truly understand why everyone of Malaysian youths feels irate against the idea of increasing the current age of retirement to 65.

When I was working in a government-linked company for four years, young talents like me had been underscored by most “super-senior staff” who were allergic to outspoken young men like me.

Some of them have been working for the company for more than 2 decades (even more than my age) and they arrogantly act like they know everything about the company better than those whose names newly-recorded in the human resource employment system.

To them, Gen-Y staff, especially those who are in managerial level, aren't in the best league to say a thing in ideas during meetings or face-to-face discussions with bosses as they labelled us as "too fresh" and "half-boiled".

Being negatively labelled had many times discouraged me from concerning about matters of corrective ideas at work, and the negativity that surrounds the corporate ambience of the company has actually been passed on from one generation to another due to the nurtured egoism of "being senior means know everything and can't be stood against."

That happens because of the inherited “traditional culture” that restricts fresh talents from being hired or entrusted to hold senior or middle managerial positions, which “ancient subordinates” think only those in their circles of ages are entitled for.

At the end, all the ideas brought up to board of directors' meetings are old-fashioned and even worse, they are recycled ones.

And "working towards the betterment of the corporation" remains a fantasy as only insights and opinions voiced out or penned by seniors "make sense."

"New Malaysia" that the government keeps boasting should be about levelling up young talents in both corporate and government sectors.

Government bodies, be they GLCs or agencies, have to embrace young bloods to shoulder important portfolios in their organisations.

"Elevating youths’ power" isn’t just about letting them to be an electoral candidate or remunerating them as interns, but it must also be about daring them to be a thinker and intellectual to the nation’s economic growth.

If young minds like 35-year-old Mark Zuckerberg and 39-year-old Jacinda Ardern can sturdily stand as the great figures in their own arenas, why can’t our Malaysian youths be believed the same to shine in their own careers without being walled by the still-exist old-timers.

Like in politics, until when the same old faces keep refilling up the parties' top echelons?

Are young politicians only deserved to be a political chanter or pundit?

If we keep pushing the same old striker to be playing in every football match for years because we have a belief that only him can “retain the victory the team has earned”, how about young strikers produced every year from the football academies? Will they bring no good lucks to the team?

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* Amerul Azry Abdul Aziz is an independent writer who now views politics as something that can be researched.

** The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the position of Astro AWANI.