Abstract: The rapid expansion of oil palm plantation in Malaysia in 1990, 2.03 million hectares to 5.73
million hectares in 2016 (Malaysia Palm Oil Board 2017) caused required high labour intensive
in this sector. .More than 78 % of labour (Azman 2014) in these sectors mainly came from
Indonesia, Bangladesh and Philippines and most of the local youth refused to make oil palm
plantation as a career due to the working environment compared to manufacturing sector which
more conducive. Hence, this contributes instability and unsustainability in 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 satisfaction among local youth which still working and those who left in Peninsular
Malaysia and analysing the factors contribute to their satisfaction level. The purposive
randomised sampling among the 271 local youths aged ranging from 16 to 40 years old which
was considered as youth category in Malaysia. 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 plantation sector showed more significant value compared to those who are
still working. This showed the construct reflects the satisfaction level if the plantation sector
fulfilled the intrinsic factors of job satisfaction and happiness. |