Recruitment Practices
in the Malaysian Public Sector:
Innovations or Political Responses?
Kuan Heong Woo
Universiti Sains Malaysia
ABSTRACT
An efficient, competitive, and resilient civil service depends largely on the quality of its human re­
sources. The key to achieving this goal is to implement human resource management policies that
attract, develop, and retain the best talent. Malaysia is a multiethnic country. The large size and role
of the Malaysian civil service underline not only the importance of civil service performance but
equal employment opportunities as well. The increasingly mono-ethnic civil service has highlighted
issues of representation and responsiveness to all ethnic groups. To rectify the ethnic imbalance in
the civil service, the Malaysian Public Service Commission has initiated innovations in its recruitment
practices to attract more non-Malay job seekers. The purpose of this article is to examine how the
personnel recruitment practices of the Malaysian public sector are affecting the representativeness
and performance of its civil service.
KEYWORDS
Public employment, human resources, attractiveness, representative bureaucracy
The civil service is a major part of modern
government. It carries out activities that affect
many aspects of citizen’s lives. This is especially
the case in Malaysia because of the large size
and major role of the nation’s civil service.
Thus, it is understandable that such matters as
equal employment opportunities and perform­
ance of the civil service are of major concern to
the country’s citizens.
Central to the performance of the civil service,
or any organization, is its ability to secure
needed human resources. Human resources
contribute to innovation and are the major
factor in encouraging organizational innovation
and performance (Baron & Kreps, 1999;
Laursen & Foss, 2012). An efficient, com­
petitive, and resilient civil service depends
JPAE 21 (2), 229–246
largely on the quality of its human resources.
The key to achieving these goals is through the
implementation of human resource manage­
ment policies that attract, develop, and retain
the best talent. Success in securing needed hu­
man resources for the civil service depends
directly on public personnel recruitment prac­
tices. However, it also depends, and no less
importantly, on a prior factor: namely, whether
the civil service is able to attract enough of the
right kind of people from the labor force.
Malaysia is a multiethnic country. The three
major ethnic groups in the country are Malay,
Chinese, and Indian. According to the 2010
cen­sus, the population of Malaysia is 54.6%
Ma­lay, 24.6% Chinese, 7.3% Indian, and 12.8%
other (mainly other natives)1 (Department of
Journal of Public Affairs Education229
K. H. Woo
Statistics Malaysia, 2010). The Malaysian gov­
ern­ment is the major employer in the country.
The introduction of the New Economic Policy
(NEP) after the race-based violence on May 13,
1969, marked a sharp increase in the restruc­
turing role of the Malaysian government. The
number of civil servants has increased rapidly
since the start of the NEP. Since 1990, civil
servants have accounted for over 10% of the
country’s labor force (employed persons) and
for about 4% of the country’s population
(Woo, 2011, 2013).
However, available data show that in 2010,
a­mong the 1.22 million civil service employees,
only 6% were Chinese. Among the 1,121,692
applicants to government jobs in 2011, only
2% to 3% were Chinese or Indian (“1.22 Mil­
lion Civil Servants,” 2010; “Until June 21,”
2010).2 Of the 1,458,679 applicants to gov­ern­
ment jobs in the first 3 months of 2013, only
1.67% of the applicants were Chinese (“80,000
Govt Posts To Be Filled,” 2013). Dissatisfaction
with the increasing ethnic homogeneity of the
civil service, as well as with its performance, has
called into question the ability of the civil ser­
vice to attract needed human resources to en­
sure both capacity and (ethnic) representation.
Ethnic preference is believed to be widely
practiced in Malaysian public employment. It
is also said that this practice compromises
capacity. According to Esman (1972, p. 75),
“the country paid a price in reduced admini­
strative effectiveness” because public careers
were “denied to many talented non-Malays.” A
representative bureaucracy has the potential to
improve the performance of the civil service.
Representative bureaucracy has both symbolic
and substantive effects (Mosher, 1968, pp. 10–
14). An unrepresentative bureaucracy not only
symbolizes unequal treatment but also likely
leads to substantively unequal treatment to
minorities. When most of the Malaysian gov­
ernment’s key and decision-making positions
are in the hands of majority Malay represent­
atives, the appointment of minorities into the
civil service very much depends on the mindset (such as understanding and empathy) and
behavior (such as bias, responsiveness, and
230
Journal of Public Affairs Education
discrimination) of those officials. And,
education plays an important role in forming
or influencing people’s mind-set and behavior.
This article examines how personnel recruit­
ment practices in the Malaysian public sector
affect ethnic representation and capacity in the
civil service. The following section analyzes the
Malaysian civil service in terms of attractiveness,
size, and performance. Factors that influence
choice of employment will also be examined.
A discussion of Malaysian public personnel
recruitment practices follows. The last section
is a concluding discussion of the topics covered
in this article.
THE MALAYSIAN CIVIL SERVICE
This section first looks at the attractiveness to
job seekers of the Malaysian civil service. It
continues with an analysis of factors that
influence job seekers’ choice of employment.
The purpose of this is to ascertain the main
factors that pull job seekers to public em­
ployment and the main factors that push them
away. The size of the civil service will then be
examined. Performance criteria and stand­ards
are briefly discussed before this section con­
cludes with an evaluation of the performance of
the Malaysian civil service.
Attractiveness of Employment
in the Civil Service
The attractiveness of public employment has
been empirically assessed only in some develop­
ed countries, such as the United States (Kilpat­rick, Cummings, & Jennings, 1964); Australia
(Dan­iel & Encel, 1981); OECD (Organisation
for Economic Co-operation and Development)
countries (Aijala, 2001); the United Kingdom
(“Which Sector Would You Rather Work In?”
2010); and Singapore (“Would You Prefer to
Work in the Public or Private Sector?” 2010).
There has been no corresponding systematic
examination in most developing countries.
However, in Malaysia, the attractiveness of
public employment has been empirically
assessed by Woo (2011). According to Woo’s
study, the Malaysian civil service is capable of
attracting more than its share of local new
Public Sector Recruitment in Malaysia
graduates in terms of overall numbers. Nearly
half of graduating students, or 49.8% of Woo’s
sample (1,200 respondents), were attracted to
the civil service, while the civil service needed
no more than 20% of the sample.3 In terms
of the four aspects of capacity examined in
Woo’s study, namely academic performance,
profi­ciency in Malay, proficiency in English,
and academic major, the civil service was still
able to attract more than the necessary 20% of
respondents. The Malaysian civil service can
thus be said to be doing better than the private
sector as a whole.
In terms of representation, Woo’s findings show
that the civil service faces no difficulty in
attracting a sufficient number of applicants from
all ethnic and gender groups. However, repre­
sentative recruitment may require some com­
promise of capacity measured by cumula­tive
grade point average (CGPA). This com­promise
clearly applies both to the recruitment of Chi­
nese applicants, to ensure ethnic representation,
as well as to the recruitment of males, to ensure
gender representation (Woo, 2011).
Factors relating to material rewards are the
primary pull factors cited by those choosing
public employment in Malaysia—as well as the
primary push factors cited by nonchoosers of
public employment (Woo, 2011, chapter 6). In
order of importance, the top seven factors cit­ed by Woo’s respondents as pull factors that
attracted them to government jobs were job
security, fringe benefits, fixed working hours,
low job stress, sufficient pay, good promotion
prospects, and many holidays. The first five
factors together accounted for 74.3% of total
cites. Clearly, the pull factors fall under two
broad categories; namely, the category of mater­
ial rewards, which the factors of job security,
fringe benefits, sufficient pay, and good promo­
tion prospects primarily relate to,4 and the
category of lower job demands, which consist
of the three factors of fixed working hours, low
job stress, and many holidays.
As for push factors, the top seven factors cited
as the main factors that pushed nonchoosers of
public employment away from considering the
sector, in order of importance, were unattractive
pay, poor promotion prospects, not an inter­
esting and challenging job, poor image, low
autonomy, high work load, and poor working
environment. The first three push factors
accounted for 70.6% of total cites. The two
main push factors, unattractive pay (68.7% of
total cites) and poor promotion prospects
(47.6% of total cites), relate to material rewards
from the job. The second-most-common push
factor, poor promotion prospects, merits fur­
ther discussion. This factor is more frequently
cited by non-Malay (mainly Chinese and Indian)
nonchoosers than by Malay non­choos­ers, and a
major reason for this was the perception of
discrimination in promotion. Almost one sixth
of the total number of non-Malay nonchoosers
in the study cited discrimination in promotion
as a push factor. No Malay nonchooser cited
discrimination in promotion as a reason for not
joining the public sector. This probably explains
the lack of attractiveness of Malaysian public
employment to high-CGPA Chinese graduate
job seekers in Woo’s (2011) study.
These findings clearly suggest the primacy of
material rewards in influencing graduate job
seekers’ choice of employment. While choosers
are mainly attracted because they see material
rewards in the Malaysian public sector as
sufficient and secured, nonchoosers are pushed
away mainly because they see the material
rewards in the public sector as unattractive and
the prospects of securing higher material
rewards through promotion as poor. Woo’s
findings also indicate the desire of Malaysian
job seekers who are attracted to public
employment to have a materially sufficient life
and less work pressure.
The importance of sufficient material rewards
and a better work-life balance among job
seek­ers who seek Malaysian public employment
seems to persist. Job security, sufficient pay,
fringe benefits, and fixed working hours are
still the main attractions of government jobs
(“More People Intend to Become Civil Serv­
ant,” 2010; “PSC Appointed 14,257 Candi­
dates,” 2013; “Public Sector Attracts Chinese,
Indians,” 2013; “Public Service Commission,”
Journal of Public Affairs Education231
K. H. Woo
2012, Tee, 2009). Those who avoid government
jobs, on the other hand, see the salary scheme
in the public sector as less flexible than in the
private sector, and Chinese job seekers still have
the negative perception that they would be dis­
criminated against in public sector promo­tion
decisions (“Fair Treatment,” 2012; “Malay­sia
Employees Federation,” 2010; “Who Does Not
Like,” 2012).
Size and Performance of the Civil Service
The number of Malaysian federal civil servants
has increased from 979,464 in 2000 to 1,222,947
in 2009, an increase of 24.9%. In the same per­
iod, the government’s expenditure on federal
civil servant emoluments alone increased from
RM14,608 million in 2000 to RM37,985 mil­
lion in 2009, an increase of 160.0% (Ministry
of Finance Malaysia, 2012; “1.22 Million Civil
Servants,” 2010; Public Service Department,
2008; “Until June 21,” 2010). Available data
in­dicates that civil servant emoluments have al­
ways been a big portion of the federal govern­
ment’s operating expenditures. In a recent speech
launching the Civil Service Labour Day cele­
bration in 2014, the present Malaysian prime
minister, Najib Razak, said that “the govern­
ment has no plan to reduce the strength of civil
servants in the country which currently num­
bers about 1.5 million” (Office of the Chief
Secretary to the Government, 2014).
Is public employment in Malaysia high by inter­
national standards? Determining the right size
of a nation’s civil service is a complex matter,
and precise comparisons among countries are
difficult due to differing definitions. However,
Lucas and Verry, the chief technical advisers in
human resources planning to the Economic
Planning Unit of the federal government dur­
ing the preparation of the Sixth Malaysia Plan
(1991–1995), have presented revealing inter­
national comparisons (Lucas & Verry, 1999).
Malaysia ranked third among eleven nations and
second after Singapore among the nine East and
South Asian countries in total govern­ment em­
ployment relative to total population. Mal­aysia
both ranked third among the nine East and
South Asian countries in total public employ­
ment relative to total nonagricultural employ­
232
Journal of Public Affairs Education
ment, and in total public sector (including public
enterprise) employment relative to nonagri­cul­
tural employment. Lucas and Verry (1999)
conclude that “by whichever measure, it seems
that Malaysia indeed had a fairly large public
sector by Asian standards as of 1987” (p. 229).
Two more recent reports lend support to Lu­cas
and Verry’s conclusion. In 2003, Malaysia rank­ed
first among six Asian countries in total public
employment relative to total population. And
in 2009, Malaysia’s civil-servants-to-population
ratio was the highest in the Asia Pacific region
(“Malaysian Civil Servants’ Salary Schemes,”
2006; Shad Saleem Faruqi, 2011). These
comparisons are sufficient to show the large size
and role of the Malaysian civil service and to
underline the importance of its performance.
Evaluating civil service performance also faces
difficult problems of measurement and stand­
ards to be used. However, Lim (2010) argues
that it is both appropriate and feasible to eval­
uate civil service performance by looking at
the satisfaction of stakeholders with the civil
service, because “meeting the expectations of
stakeholders is the raison d’être of the public
service” (p. 3). The stakeholders here refer to
the country’s citizens.
The public often regards corruption and unsat­
isfactory service delivery as significant perform­
ance deficits of the civil service. Government
corruption has long been seen as worrisome.
According to both rank and score in Trans­
parency International’s Corruption Perception
Index, little improvement has been made in
political and bureaucratic corruption in Malay­
sia since 1995 (C. F. Lee, 2013; Lim, 2010).
Public dissatisfaction with the delivery of public
services is indicated by the volume of complaints
received by the Public Complaints Bureau. Public complaints shot up to 14,700 cases in 2010
compared to 2,707 cases in 2005 (Prime Mini­
ster’s Department, 2013), suggesting increasing
public dissatisfaction.
The ability of the police to ensure a safe living
environment has also been widely questioned.
Public Sector Recruitment in Malaysia
High crime rates are plaguing the daily lives of
the public. Even the Malaysian home minister
recently admitted that Malaysians had reason
to be worried about the rising crime rate
(“Ahmad Zahid,” 2013).
in line with changing needs and expectations of
leaders and the public.” He has called for a new
breed of civil servants who possess strong analy­
tical capabilities and the ability to generate wellthought-out policy options (Najib Razak, 2005).
In the Malaysian multiethnic context, equitable
responsiveness to all ethnic groups is an im­
portant criterion of civil service performance.
The perceived lack of responsiveness to under­
represented groups has raised concern over
the shortage of non-Malays in the civil service.
The Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA)
has shown concern over this trend since the
1980s (Lim, 2002). In the 2001 Kampung
Medan incident, the mainly Malay police force
was seen to be blatantly biased in handling the
outbreak of violence between Malays and
Indians. This seems to have awakened the
country’s leaders to the dangers of a nonrepre­
sentative bureaucracy (Lim, 2007).
Failure of the top management of the govern­
ment in handling recent crises has also invited
huge criticisms. One of the incidents was the
disappearance of the flight MH370, which was
followed across the world. Inconsistencies in
information revealed by ministers and top civil
servants from various departments exposed the
weaknesses and the limitations of the govern­
ment’s leadership (Chen & Scott, 2014).
Another recent crisis has included abductions
in Sabah, a state in East Malaysia. The latest
abduction, of a fish farm manager (a Chinese
citizen) by a kidnap-for-ransom armed group
from the Philippines in May 2014, has caused
great concern among domestic and international
communities (Chok, 2014). The abduction
was the second incident within a month, and
the third within the past six months. The abil­
ity of the Eastern Sabah Security Command
(ESSCOM)6 to ensure security along the east
coast of Sabah is being seriously questioned.
Some, including members of parliament from
the ruling parties, have dubbed the ESSCOM a
“toothless tiger” or a useless “white elephant”
(“RM300m ESSCOM,” 2014). The recent
abduction not only damages the tourism
industry, which has already been badly affected
by previous abductions, but is also a major
setback to the country’s efforts to recover from
the impact and damage caused by the missing
Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.
The quality of the civil servants who hold
positions in the civil service has also been
questioned. There are indications that the
government is experiencing the problem of
“institutional decline” regarding its public
sector institutions, and this is closely related to
the quality of personnel in the public sector.5
As stated by Abdullah Ahmad, then group
editor-in-chief of the New Straits Times Press,
in an address to civil servants, many believe or
fear that the Malaysian bureaucracy is filled
with “second-raters” or worse (“Civil Servants
Must Aim High,” 2003).
The quality of personnel has direct effects on
performance. Doubts have been raised about
the knowledge and analytical skill of senior civil
servants and about their ability to contribute to
effective policy making. Former prime minister
Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has lamented that
“without the brightest minds conceptualising,
adapting and driving public policies, good
governance would remain an elusive ideal”
(“Aim for System of Governance,” 2000). The
present prime minister, Najib Razak, also stated
(when he was Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s
deputy) that the civil service was “not good
enough” and had to “renew and reinvent itself
In short, the competency and ability of mini­
sters and top civil servants to manage rapidly
growing crises have been seriously questioned.
The above discussion also indicates that the
Malaysian civil service has failed to meet the
expectations of its stakeholders.
In summary, based on Woo’s (2011) study, the
frequent allegations that the Malaysian civil
service is insufficiently attractive to new grad­
uates cannot be true with respect to overall
numbers. These allegations are likely less about
Journal of Public Affairs Education233
K. H. Woo
overall numbers and more about failure to
attract enough applicants to ensure capacity
and representativeness. Woo also found that
the civil service was sufficiently attractive to
ensure capacity and representativeness. The
inability of the civil service to meet the
expectations of its stakeholders then raises the
following question: Are continuing fears about
inadequate capacity completely unfounded?
Unfortunately, the answer is, not necessarily,
for reasons to be noted in the concluding
section of this article.
RECRUITMENT PRACTICES IN THE
MALAYSIAN CIVIL SERVICE
As discussed above, in general, Malaysian public
employment is able to attract enough applicants
to secure a capable and representative civil ser­
vice. When study shows that the civil service is
sufficiently attractive to all ethnic groups in the
country, this directly raises the question of why
the civil service is predominantly Malay. De­
spite frequent official denials, recruitment into
the Malaysian civil service is widely seen as
favoring Malay applicants.
The number of civil servants recruited into the
Malaysian civil service increases almost every
year. For example, 38,373 civil servants were
appointed in 2007, and 52,369 in 2008, for an
increase of 36.5%. A total of 47,335 civil
servants were appointed in 2012, compared to
29,547 in 2011, for an increase of 60.2% (“The
Appointment of Chinese Civil Servants,” 2013;
“Until June 21,” 2010). In 2013, the Malaysian
chief secretary to the government, Ali Hamsa,
announced that with the civil service at 1.42 mil­
lion strong, the country has sufficient civil ser­
vants to meet the country’s needs (“Ali Ham­sa,”
2013). The Malay dominance in the civil ser­vice,
however, is still a major concern to the public.
While the Malaysian civil service expanded
rapid­ly following the implementation of the
NEP (New Economic Policy), recruitment into
the sector continued to be predominantly
Malay. Since then, the civil service has become
increasingly ethnically imbalanced. Data show
that the proportion of Malay in the civil service
increased from 64.5% in 1969–1970 (before
234
Journal of Public Affairs Education
the implementation of the NEP) to 77.0% in
2005 and to 76.2% in 2009, while at the same
time, the proportion of Chinese and Indian
civil servants have declined appreciably: from
18.8% and 15.7%, respectively, in 1969–1970
to 9.4% and 5.1% in 2005 and then to 6.0%
and 4.3% in 2009 (Lim, 2013). The situation
persists to the present. The domination of
Malay in the civil service clearly contradicts the
second objective of the NEP, namely, elimi­
nating the identification of race with economic
function. The increasingly ethnically homogen­ous civil service is far from reflecting the
country’s multiethnic population compos­ition,
and clearly cannot be justified with the 1Mal­
aysia philosophy.7
Innovation in human resources practice, in any
organization, does not merely correspond with
growth or decline in the number of employees.
Therefore, even though the number of new
civil servants recruited into the Malaysian civil
service increases almost every year, this growth
does not necessarily contribute to innovation in
public personnel recruitment practices—unless
these new recruits contribute to improvements
in efficiency, in meeting citizens’ expectations,
or in attaining desired outcomes and quality.
According to Green, Howells, and Miles
(2001, p. 9), “the recruitment of new workers
con­stitutes change but is an innovative step only
where such workers are introduced in order to
import new knowledge or carry out novel tasks.”
It is evident that public personnel recruit­ment
practices in Malaysia constitute change, though
not innovation. At a minimal level, current
recruitment practices seem unable to rectify the
severely imbalanced ethnic composition of the
civil service.
Some contend that innovation should be a core
activity of the public sector (Mulgan & Albury,
2003). Innovation in a public sector context
should involve the application of new ideas to
improve outcomes, and should help “to im­
prove performance and increase public value;
respond to the expectations of citizens and
adapt to the needs of users; increase service
efficiency and minimise costs” (Mulgan & Al­
bury, 2003, p. 2). Qualified and quality human
Public Sector Recruitment in Malaysia
resources promote innovation. Research has
shown that human capital and its management
are important determinants of innovation out­
puts (De Winnie & Sels, 2010; Zhou, Dekker,
& Kleinknecht, 2011). Roberts (1998, as cited
in Jørgensen, Becker, & Matthews, 2009, p. 451)
argues that the four dimensions of staffing,
structure, strategy, and system support are cen­
tral to successful innovation, and that en­suring
that the organization has the right kind of peo­
ple and manages them effectively are critical
staffing issues.
As in the private sector, innovation in the pub­
lic sector is motivated and driven by a variety
of factors. One of the driving imperatives for
inno­vation would be meeting the needs of or
responding effectively to “new and changing
government and community expectations in an
increasingly complex environment” (Australian
National Audit Office, 2009, p. 2). With their
civil service being of large size and expenditure
(specifically for employee emoluments), it is
reason­able for Malaysians to have high expect­
ations. The large size and scope of the Malaysian
civil service has also raised concerns about
whether it is sufficiently representative of all
social groups. It is legitimate for the public in
a multiethnic society to expect a sufficiently
representative civil service, to reflect the com­
position of the country’s population.
Research has shown that representativeness in
civil service is important. It promotes the legit­
imacy of the bureaucracy (and the government)
in that diverse groups have a greater sense of
identification and a greater expectation of being
fairly served when civil servants are visibly and
sufficiently diverse (Lim, 2006, 2010; Meier &
Nicholson-Crotty, 2002; Selden, 1997; Theo­
bald, Nick & Haider-Markel, 2009). A repre­
sentative bureaucracy is expected to ensure
equitable job opportunities to all ethnic groups
and a fairer distribution of resources and
services. More importantly, in the process of
implementing public policies, a representative
bureaucracy is expected to be responsive to the
needs of various ethnic groups, which in turn
enhances the effectiveness and efficiency of the
sector. Responsiveness of the civil service in
meeting the expectations of various ethnic
groups is very important in a multiethnic society,
as Lim (2010) argues: “Without responsiveness,
effectiveness is worthless at best; and without
effectiveness, efficiency is nil as all resources
used are simply wasted” (pp. 2–3).
Obviously, the increasingly homogeneity of the
Malaysian civil service is incompatible with the
expectations of the country’s multiethnic pub­
lic. A highly unrepresentative civil service has
serious implications for equity in administration
and consequently for trust in the public service,
government legitimacy, and national unity.
Incremental Innovation in
Civil Service Recruitment
Likely because the Malaysian civil service has
been able to count on a numerically plentiful
supply of applicants, its recruitment practices
have been generally passive rather than
proactive. However, recently, to attract more
non-Malay applicants, the Malaysian Public
Service Commission (PSC) has taken the
initiative of going beyond the “announce-andwait” approach to recruitment. In early 2009,
in its efforts to increase the number of nonMalay civil servants (and especially Chinese),
the PSC initiated cooperation with non-Malay
nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) such
as the Federation of Chinese Association
Malaysia (Hua Zong) to recruit Chinese civil
servants (The Federation of Chinese Association
Malaysia, 2010). Such joint recruitment drives
between non-Malay NGOs and the PSC are
rare, if ever heard of before. The joint recruit­
ment drive could be viewed as a measure based
on the Malaysian multiethnic community’s
needs and expectations. PSC-NGO cooperation
is clearly an innovation: it involves doing some­
thing differently and deliberately in order to
achieve the objective of a more representative
bureaucracy that is shaped by the multiethnic
national community.
Since the PSC began to cooperate with nonMalay NGOs in recruiting non-Malay civil
servants, the response of the public has been
encouraging. Such PSC-NGO joint recruit­
ment activities always receive positive responses
Journal of Public Affairs Education235
K. H. Woo
from Chinese job seekers, and have also attract­
ed the attention of major local Chinese news­
papers, in which joint recruitment drives are
often seen as important events and given detailed
coverage (“The Appointment of Chinese Civil
Servants,” 2013; “First Three Months,” 2013;
“Good Respond,” 2010; “Khor Tsu Koon,”
2009; “Public Service Commission,” 2012;
“Until June 21,” 2010). Recruitment of nonMalay (Chinese) civil servants is not something
new. However, the current change in the per­
cep­tions and behaviors of non-Malay (Chinese)
job seekers in seeking public employ­ment is
something new. And, according to Koch and
Hauknes (2005, p. 8), innovative:
Innovation is a change of behaviour that
is new to the relevant agent, but not ne­
cessarily new to society as a whole. If a
civil servant deliberately introduces a new
way of doing his or her professional obli­
ga­tions or activities, with the purpose of
providing an improved service, this is an
innovation, even if someone else might
have done something similar elsewhere.
Following such innovative recruitment prac­
tices, PSC Chairman Mahmood Adam agreed
that interest among non-Malays in joining the
civil service has increased and that the joint
recruitment efforts paid off (“Non-Malays Rush
to Join Civil Service,” 2013; “70 pc More NonMalays,” 2013). This type of innovation could
be categorized as a system interaction innova­
tion, which involves new or improved ways
of interacting with other organizations and
knowledge bases or the establishment of new
patterns of cooperation and interaction (Hal­
vorsen, Hauknes, Miles, & Røste, 2005; Koch
& Hauknes, 2005).
Table 1 shows public service recruitment num­
bers from 2004 to 2007. Recruitment led to an
increased proportion of Malays (from 65.4% in
2004 to 82.4% in that time period), while re­
cruitment of Chinese, Indian, and other groups
(mainly other natives) led to falling per­centages
(from 13.1%, 8.9%, and 12.6%, re­spectively,
in 2004 to 3.4%, 3.1%, and 11.1% in 2007). It
is clear that recruitment practices in that per­iod
further weakened the notion of represent­ative
bureaucracy in Malaysia.
Quota requirements and the low rate of
applications of non-Malay compared to Malay
are often cited as the two main official reasons
for the low appointment rates of non-Malay
civil servants. Table 2 shows the number of
public applications from different ethnic groups
from 2004 to 2007. While it is true that
compared to the percentage of applicants
who were ethnically Malay, the percentages
of Chinese and Indians were low, Lim (2010)
argues that it is the actual number and not the
percentage that is important. Tables 1 and 2
show that in terms of quantity, the number
TABLE 1.
Public Service Recruitment, 2004–2007
2004
Malay
Chinese
2006
2007
N
%
N
%%
N
%
4,187
65.4
22,618
80.3
31,675
82.4
841
13.1
1,045
3.7
1,326
3.4
Indian
568
8.9
1,150
4.1
1,188
3.1
Other
806
12.6
3,352
11.9
4,273
11.1
6,402
100.0
28,165
100.0
38,462
100.0
Total
Source. Data from Lim (2010).
236
Journal of Public Affairs Education
Public Sector Recruitment in Malaysia
TABLE 2.
Public Service Applicants, 2004–2007
2004
Malay
Chinese
2006
N
%
N
264,885
79.5
535,766
11,369
3.4
11,988
2007
N
%%
82.5
631,264
82.7
1.8
12,875
1.7
%%
Indian
9,340
2.8
16,801
2.6
18,553
2.4
Other
47,827
14.3
84,810
13.1
100,826
13.2
Total
333,421
100.0
649,365
100.0
763,518
100.0
Source. Data from Lim (2010).
of Chinese and Indian applicants who were
recruited were small compared to the numbers
who applied. Hence, the underrepresentation
of Chinese and Indian civil servants cannot
be explained simply by the low percentages
of applicants.
most useful is the 60–40 recruitment system,
which was proposed to the Ninth Malaysia
Plan (2006–2010) in a study entitled Towards a
Representative and World Class Civil Servant
(Asian Strategy & Leadership Institute, 2006).
The 60–40 recruitment system is an incre­
mental innovation. Incremental innovations
are innovations that would incrementally
improve already existing products, processes, or
services (Koch & Hauknes, 2005). In fact, such
innovations have been carried out since joint
PSC-NGO recruitment began in late 2008, if
not earlier.
Quota requirements based on constitutional
provisions, according to former Chief Justice
Mohamed Suffian Hashim (1976), are only
applicable to five services: namely, the
Malaysian Home Service and Foreign Service,
the Judicial and Legal Service, the Custom
Service, the police force, and the armed forces.
These five services collectively cover only a
small share of all civil servants. Clearly, public
personnel recruitment practices are more
decisive in creating a representative bureaucracy
than are quota requirements, a point that has
been made by Means (1986). In summary, the
increasing homogeneity of the Malaysian civil
service is closely related to recruitment practices
in the public sector.
Table 3 shows public service recruitment from
2008 to 2011. The percentages of Chinese and
Indian civil servants have increased, from 4.4%
and 4.5%, respectively, in 2008 to 5.2% and
4.7% in 2009 and to 8.0% and 5.4% in 2011.
The incremental increases of Chinese and Indian
civil servants is consistent with the concept of
incremental innovations.
Representative bureaucracy is one of the
democratic norms. This is to ensure a responsive
civil service to all regardless of ethnicity and
also to ensure the absence of ethnic bias in
formulating and implementing public policies.
Many strategies have been suggested to pursue
an appropriate and ethnically diverse represent­
ation policy in Malaysian civil service staffing
or recruitment practices. The strategy that seems
The pertinent question to ask is this: Does the
incremental recruitment strategy alter or im­prove
ethnic representativeness in the civil service?
Apparently, the answer is no. As suggested by
the data discussed earlier in this section, the
percentages of Chinese and Indian civil servants
have decreased overall, from 18.8% and 15.7%,
respectively, in 1969–1970 to 9.4% and 5.1%
in 2005 and then to 6.0% and 4.3% in 2009.
Journal of Public Affairs Education237
K. H. Woo
TABLE 3.
Civil Service Recruitment, 2008–2011
2008
Malay
2009
N
%
N
2011
%
N
%
41,177
78.6
34,536
68.0
20,976
71.0
Chinese
2,286
4.4
2,660
5.2
2,365
8.0
Indian
2,367
4.5
2,398
4.7
1,581
5.4
Other
6,542
12.5
11,162
22.0
4,625
15.7
Total
52,372
100.0
50,756
100.0
29,547
100.0
Source. Data from Sin Chew Daily (2010, August 27) and Sin Chew Daily (2013, January 3).
TABLE 4.
Civil Service Recruitment, 2011–2013
2011a
2012 a
2013b
N
%
N
%
N
%
20,976
71.0
33,427
70.6
5,160
73.3
Chinese
2,365
8.0
2,630
5.6
374
5.3
Indian
1,581
5.4
2,354
5.0
403
5.7
Others
4,625
15.7
8,924
18.9
1,106
15.7
29,547
100.0
47,335
100.0
7,043
100.0
Malay
Total
Note. Data reported for 2013 is from the first three months of the year only.
Source. aData from Sin Chew Daily (2013, January 3). bData from Nanyang Siang Pau (2013, April 4).
As confirmed by PSC Chairman Mahmood
Adam, Chinese applicants tend to prefer
higher-level positions, which require university
quali­fications (“The Appointment of Chinese
Civil Servants,” 2013). Hence it could be more
ac­cu­r­ate to focus on civil servant represent­ation
in the management and professional group,
which requires university qualifications. In
2005 (before PSC-NGO joint recruitment
began), the percentages of Chinese and Indian
civil servants in the management and profess­
ional group were 9.4% and 5.1% respectively.
At the end of 2009, about a year after the
joint re­cruitment initiative, the percentage of
238
Journal of Public Affairs Education
Chi­nese civil servants had increased to 10.7%,
while the percentage of Indian civil servants
remained at 5.1% (Lim, 2013, pp. 180 & 183).
This situation is encouraging, although the
increase (for Chinese civil servants) is small.
This type of incremental innovation should be
carried out continuously to slowly rectify the
current extreme ethnic imbalance. The incre­
mental strategy should be maintained for
another reason: It is a rather painless strategy,
unlikely to offend the sentiments of Malays
because it does not involve any sudden change
in the civil service. Large changes are likely to
incite resistance to the innovation.
Public Sector Recruitment in Malaysia
Political Responsiveness
in Civil Service Recruitment
The discussion above shows that innovations
applied by the PSC have resulted in mild
improvement. However, recently released data
show decreased recruitment of Chinese civil
servants across the civil service as a whole. As
shown in Table 4, the percentages of Chinese
job seekers being recruited into the civil service
overall have fallen, from 8.0% in 2011 to 5.6%
in 2012 and then to 5.3% during the first
three months of 2013 (“The Appointment of
Chinese Civil Servants,” 2013; “A Record of
Application,” 2013).
Whether the decrease in recruitment among
Chinese job seekers during this period will fur­
ther weaken the already-existing underrepre­
sentation of Chinese Malaysians in the civil
service cannot be verified without the necessary
data—that is, breakdowns of civil servants by
ethnic groups that have yet to be released to the
public. However, consistent with the logic
presented in this article, public personnel
recruitment practices are likely to affect the
ethnic composition of the civil service. In other
words, the current underrepresentation of
Chinese Malaysians in the civil service will
probably be exacerbated due to the lower rates
of recruitment of Chinese job seekers.
Two possible explanations can be offered. First,
managers of public personnel recruitment do
not realize that the PSC-NGO joint recruitment
and incremental increases in recruitment of
non-Malay applicants (and particularly Chinese
applicants) are innovations that will probably
be able to rectify the severity of the ethnic
imbalance in the civil service. The incrementally
increased recruitment of non-Malays into the
civil service over the period from 2009 to 2011
was probably a result of Malaysian civil servants
responding to their political leaders. The
1Malaysia project was brought forth by Najib
Razak soon after he assumed leadership of the
United Malay National Organisation (UMNO)
party and the federal government.8 The
intention of the 1Malaysia project was to foster
national unity and integration. The concept of
1Malaysia implies a Malaysia in which all
ethnic groups are treated equally by the
government. The 1Malaysia project apparently
was introduced in response to the cross-ethnic
appeal of the opposition coalition, Pakatan
Rakyat (PR); 1Malaysia was widely “seen and
billed as a ‘Najib idea’” and was not seen to
enjoy “wide-spread support among his cabinet
and his own party” (Farish Ahmad Noor, 2013,
p. 98). Support for the 1Malaysia project
waned when it failed to gain traction among
the wider Malaysian electorate, especially the
Chinese electorate, in the 2013 general
elections
The second possible explanation has something
to do with the practice and attitude of public
managers in charge of public personnel re­cruit­
ment. Means (1986, p. 105) argues that “hiring
practices, not quotas” have been deci­
sive.
According to Lewis (1977), inno­vations will be
rejected if inertia, stasis, and maintenance of
the status quo are considered more important:
Inertia, stasis, and a commitment to the
sta­tus quo are probably more charact­er­istic
of public bureaucracy than are ini­tiation
and innovation…The nontechnical mana­
gers of public bureaucracy, generalist pro­
fessionals…may reject useful innovations
that they perceive to be in­jur­ious to the
organization. (pp. 166–167)
Another point is worth making, to show the
commitment of public officials to maintaining
the status quo (the dominance of Malay civil
servants in the Malaysian civil service). Recently
released data show that non-Malay job seekers
have demonstrated “a giant leap in the interest”
in applying for government jobs (Lee, 2013).
However, it is not the increase in the percent­
ages of non-Malay applicants but the increase
in actual appointments of non-Malay civil serv­
ants that is significant. Data indicate that total
number of civil servants appointed, of all ethnic
groups, increased from 2011 to 2012. However,
the percentage increases in appointments of
non-Malay civil servants were still lower than
that of Malay civil servants—as indicated in
Table 5. The lowest increase, of merely 11%,
was for Chinese civil servants, while the
percentage of Indian civil servants joining the
service increased 49% (both increases resulted
Journal of Public Affairs Education239
K. H. Woo
TABLE 5.
Civil Service Recruitment, 2011–2012
2011
Malay
2012
Difference
N
%
N
%
N
%
20,976
71.0
33,427
70.6
12,451
59
Chinese
2,365
8.0
2,630
5.6
265
11
Indian
1,581
5.4
2,354
5.0
773
49
Others
4,625
15.7
8,924
18.9
4,299
93
29,547
100.0
47,335
100.0
17,788
Total
Source. Data from Sin Chew Daily (2013, January 3).
still in a very low percentage representation
among the civil service as a whole).
remains insignificant. This has created ethnic
seg­mentation in secondary and higher education.
The lowest increase in appointment rate be­
tween 2011 and 2012, for Chinese civil serv­ants,
probably lends some support to the first-pre­
sented explanation, in which public managers
of personnel recruitment do not need to be
responsive to a concept (1Malaysia) that has
fallen out of favor among their political leaders.
These data probably also lend some support to
the argument of Lewis (1977), in which a
commitment to maintain the status quo of the
civil service may lead to reluctance among
public managers to implement innovations
that they perceive may threaten the numerical
dominance of Malay civil servants (status quo)
in the civil service.
It is generally believed that people form their
values and beliefs largely during childhood and
early adulthood. This period, according to Aber­
­bach, Putnam, and Rockman (1981, p. 200),
“constitutes a critical period during which a
kind of ‘imprinting’ often takes place.” Schools
are generally recognized as crucial to socializa­
tion during childhood and early adult­
hood.
Ethnic-silo-style educational exper­
iences are
un­healthy, especially to the successive gen­era­
tions of Malays who continue to play the
leading roles in the country’s politics, govern­
ment, and public administration.
What are the main factors that contribute to such
a mind-set and such behaviors among Malay
public officials? One of the explanations may
lie with their education. After the May 1969
race riot, various schools and educational poli­
cies were created exclusively for Malay stu­­dents,
including the establishment of residential schools
and MARA Junior Science Colleges among
others. These schools are basically lin­guistic and
cultural—or ethnic—silos. At higher levels, the
government has created ethnically exclusive
matriculation programs and colleges, and quotabased university admissions. Although some of
these schools and programs were later opened
to non-Malay students, non-Malay enrollment
240
Journal of Public Affairs Education
In Malaysia, ethnic representation in the civil
service is often seen as a matter of employment
opportunities. Many Malays who have gone
through the type of education described above
consider public education and public sector
jobs to be, as the former chief secretary to the
government, Sidek Hassan, put it, their
“birthright”—because they are the “indigenous,
the bumiputra, and the ones with the only
right over it” (Sidek, 2010). Hence, it is not
sur­prising if they defend this “birthright” with
all resorts. This “birthright” view is strength­en­
ed via the amendment of Article 153 of
the Constitution by the UMNO-dominated
government, which basically “legalizes racial
discrimination” (Lee, 2013, p. 236). Officially,
public personnel recruitment policy is color-
Public Sector Recruitment in Malaysia
blind. But in practice, due to a lack of crossethnic understanding and empathy, many
Malay public officials who have discretionary
power in selecting and appointing tend to bias
recruitment decisions in favor of their own
ethnic group.
CONCLUSION
The Malaysian civil service is able to attract a
sufficient quantity of applicants to meet its
needs for capacity and ethnic representativeness. However, ensuring representative re­cruit­
ment of Chinese Malaysians may require some
compromise in merit as measured by CGPA.
Compared to other ethnic groups in Malaysia,
Chinese graduates with stronger academic
performance are less likely to choose pub­
lic employment.
Woo’s (2011) study findings show that the civil
service is able to attract more than its fair share
of well-qualified graduates. However, the per­
formance of the civil service is widely seen as
not good enough, and inadequate capacity is
widely seen as among the major reasons for
unsatisfactory performance. Why is capacity
still inadequate when the civil service is able to
attract more than its fair share of well-qualified
graduates? Two commonly heard factors help
to explain this seeming paradox.
One factor is that the standard of education in
Malaysian schools and public universities has
suffered a serious decline. This has provoked
concern not only among ordinary citizens but
also among the country’s political leaders, in­
cluding former MCA President Chua Soi Lek
(“Chua Soi Lek,” 2011) and former Prime Min­
ister Abdullah Badawi. The latter has called for
an “overhaul” of government schools (“School
System Overhaul,” 2004), and even an “edu­ca­tion
revolution” (Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, 2004).
Therefore, it is possible that even the betterqualified graduates, on paper, may lack the
capacity required to uplift civil service per­
formance. The standard of English proficiency
in secondary and postsecondary education has
declined to such an extent that adequate grades
or a good self-rating in English proficiency
may still not reflect adequate command of the
language. The declining standard of English
proficiency among graduates has become a
serious issue in Malaysia, exemplified by the
shocking admission by a top education ministry
official recently that two thirds of the 70,000
English-language teachers in the country failed
to reach a proficient English level. It is said that
improving the English standard among stu­
dents poses “the most acute challenge” of the
Malaysia Education Blueprint 2013–2025,
which was launched in September 2013 (Azman
Ujang, 2013; Doss, 2012; Educationfactory,
2013; Hariati & Lee, 2011). It is widely feared
that the quality of education has also declined
in other, more important respects as well.
Weaknesses in the education system affect all
sectors and have attracted serious public and
government concern.
The other widely cited factor is that public
personnel recruitment practices may fail to take
in the best applicants. Despite frequent official
denials, recruitment into the Malaysian civil ser­
vice is widely seen as favoring Malay appli­cants.
Greater emphasis on merit criteria in recruit­
ment is needed to improve capacity and per­
formance in the civil service. The severe ethnic
imbalance in the civil service is probably due to
the practice of ethnic preference in recruitment.
The increasingly homogenous work­force in the
civil service is an unhealthy phenomenon that
weakens trust in and legitimacy of the govern­
ment; reduces the responsiveness, effectiveness,
and efficiency of the public sector; and has a
negative impact on national unity.
On the behavior of Malay public officials in
favoring their own ethnic group in recruitment
practices, this article can only suggest an ex­
plan­ation resting in how educational experiences
influence people’s mind-set and behavior. Ident­
ifying exactly which aspects or characteristics of
education lead to the observed results or behaviors
will require another specifically designed study.
Demographic trends show that Chinese and
Indian minority groups in Malaysia are becoming
smaller. These minority groups ultimately depend
on Malay public officials to have sufficient
understanding and empathy to defend their
rights and future. According to Goodin (2000),
Journal of Public Affairs Education241
K. H. Woo
public officials are encouraged to adopt a form
of “internal-reflective” deliberation. Deliber­
ation, in this account, is a matter of making
people “imaginatively present” in the minds of
deliberators, with the hope of ensuring broader
representativeness. To make non-Malays “imag­
inatively present” in the minds of Malay public
officials (deliberators), cross-ethnic understand­
ing and empathy are important.
Admittedly, educational and recruitment poli­
cies both are caused by something more funda­
mental, namely the ethnic identity and com­
petition that is perpetuated by political parties
to win power. That said, educators in Malaysia
should work within the constraints of the pol­
itical context. The most appropriate time to
foster cross-ethnic understanding and empathy
among the younger generation, and the young
Malay generation especially, is at the early stage
of their (primary) education. This is to “imprint,”
to borrow Aberbach, Putnam, and Rockman’s
(1981) term, the concept of cross-ethnic
empathy and understanding into young minds.
The imprinted concept should be continued and
enhanced by educators through teaching and
learning processes at higher levels of educa­tion (secondary schools and higher). Fostering
cross-ethnic empathy and understanding through
education hopefully would produce fut­
ure
generations and leaders who have greater ap­
preciation for the im­portance of representative
bureaucracy in a modern democracy.
While there are signs of innovative practices
taking place toward rectifying the significant
overrepresentation of ethnically Malay civil
servants within the Malaysian civil service, great­
er efforts from public managers of personnel
recruitment and stronger political will from
political leaders are needed to ensure a more
representative bureaucracy in Malaysia.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The research underlying this article was sup­
port­ed by the Research Creativity and Man­
agement Office of Universiti Sains Malaysia.
242
Journal of Public Affairs Education
NOTES
1.In Malaysia, there are numerous native groups
(other than the Malays). For example, in Sabah and
Sarawak (the two states located in East Malaysia),
there are at least 30 and 40 ethnic/subethnic groups,
respectively. Most of these groups are recognized as
indigenous people. The special position of these
natives is safeguarded under Article 153 of the
Federal Constitution on par with Malay privileges.
The term “other natives” here mainly refers to these
native groups.
2. Some of the data cited was originally reported from
Malaysian local newspapers such as the Borneo Post
Online, Harian Metro, Nanyang Siang Pau, New Straits
Times, Oriental Daily News, Sin Chew Daily, Sinar
Harian, The Malay Mail/The Malay Mail Online,
The Star/The Star Online, and The Sun Daily.
3. Woo’s (2011) study was carried out in 2005. Please
see chapter 8 for details regarding the calculation of
the percentage of recent graduates that Malaysian
public employment must attract in order to fill its
graduate-level human resource needs.
4.Sufficient pay and fringe benefits are obviously
material in nature, while job security is about the
security of material rewards in the future. Good
promotion prospects are about the amount of
material rewards in the future, although this job
characteristic also affects status and authority.
5. It is said that the focus of the NEP (New Economic
Policy) on the public sector contributes to the
issue of institutional decline among government
institutions. It is widely believed that governmental
institutional decline is due to ethnically-based quota
employment patterns or to the quota system applied
during the intake of students into universities. For
details, see Gomez, Saravanamuttu, and Maznah
(2013) and H. G. Lee (2013).
6. ESSCOM is a Malaysian security area that covers
1,400 kilometers of the east coast of Sabah. Its
purpose is to strengthen maritime security in
the eastern part of Sabah and prevent terrorist
activities in the waters of Sabah, while at the same
time ensuring that trade and business activity are
not affected. ESSCOM was established in March
2013, following the 2013 crisis in which 235
armed militants from a group called Royal Security
Forces of the Sultanate of Sulu and North Borneo
Public Sector Recruitment in Malaysia
invaded Lahad Datu, a town located in the east of
Sabah. The objective of the group was to assert the
unresolved territorial claim of the Philippines of
eastern Sabah. Over RM300 million has been spent
on ESSCOM. For details, see ESSCOM TIMES
(Prime Minister’s Department, 2014).
7. The 1Malaysia concept was launched on September,
16, 2010, by Prime Minister Najib Razak. and is
aimed at nation building. 1Malaysia caters the
needs of all sectors of the plural society and aims to
ensure equal distribution of wealth among all of the
society’s ethnic groups.
8. UMNO (United Malay National Organisation) is
the dominant party in the Malaysian ruling racebased coalition, National Front or Barisan Nasional
(BN). After the 2008 general elections, in which the
BN lost control of five states, the dominant UMNO
party was faced with the prospect of a weakened
UMNO-led ruling coalition, where its non-Malay
component parties—namely the Chinese or
main­ly Chinese parties of the Malaysian Chinese
Association (MCA) and the Malaysian People’s
Movement Party or Parti Gerakan Rakyat Malaysia
(Gerakan), and the Indian party Malaysian Indian
Congress (MIC)—were struggling to stay afloat.
The positions of MCA and Gerakan were further
weakened in the ruling coalition due to their neartotal failure in the 2013 general elections.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kuan Heong Woo is a lecturer in the School of
Social Sciences at Universiti Sains Malaysia,
Penang, Malaysia. Her research and teaching
focus on public administration, representative
bureaucracy, and Malaysian politics.