JOHOR BARU, MALAYSIA - Only 31% of the vacancies offered at a career carnival for graduates organised by the state government in April were filled, the Johor State Assembly was told.

Most of the vacancies were not filled because the job seekers were not qualified, said M. Asojan, state executive councillor in charge of human resources.

Many of them also lacked working experience and confidence and had poor communication skills.

"There were 3,099 job openings offered by 57 employers during the two-day event but only 959 were filled," he told Dr Shahruddin Md Salleh (BN - Jorak) yesterday.

Asojan said according to research done by the Department of Statistics, of the 53,500 unemployed graduates in the country in 2007, 2,600 were from Johor.

He said graduates in commerce and administration, formed the highest number of unemployed (about 17,600) last year, followed by information technology (IT) and computer, engineering and social and behavioural sciences.

The assembly was also told that efforts were being taken to solve the problem of monkeys in Kukup.

State executive councillor in charge of environment Tan Kok Hong said several locations such as Serkat Laut, Serkat Timur, Taman Megara Tanjung Piai and Kampung Perpat were "hotspots" where about 1,000 monkeys were threatening the livelihood of the people.

"The Wildlife Department has a monkey management enforcement plan that aims to settle the problems within six months from the date the complaints were received," he told Datuk Othman Yusoff (BN - Kukup).

He was responding to a question poised by Datuk Othman Yusoff (Kukup - BN) on the need to have solution to solve the problems of thousands of monkeys in Kukup that were a threat to the residents.

Othman suggested that traps be set up to catch the monkeys while Tahir Taat (BN - Bukit Serampang) said the animals could be exported.