They Finished the Programme. Then the Records Went Quiet.

Food for Thought

We trained them. They completed the programmes. Most moved into jobs, education or continued searching. But for 2,348 Bruneians, the official trail went quiet. They may be working. They may not. That uncertainty matters. Perhaps the next employment question is not how many we train — but what happens afterwards?

KopiTalk LegCo Tracker · Second Meeting — Special Report (Employment)

Brunei has invested heavily in preparing local jobseekers for work. Most programme completers remained visible in employment, education or job-search records. But for 2,348 people, an important question remains: what happened next?

By Malai Hassan Othman

There are 2,348 Bruneians in the latest employment figures who deserve another look.

They completed Government workforce-development programmes designed to improve their employability. But afterwards, their trail through the official records cited in the Legislative Council went quiet.

They should not automatically be described as unemployed or inactive. Hansard establishes something narrower — and perhaps more interesting.

Since 2017, the Manpower Planning and Employment Council has introduced 17 Manpower Development Programmes, covering areas such as HSSE, accounting, human resources, and Allied Health.

By 30 June 2026, 16,158 Bruneians had participated: 15,230 jobseekers and 928 already employed.

Among the jobseekers, 13,839 had completed their programmes while another 1,391 were still undergoing training.

Then comes the more revealing breakdown.

Of the 13,839 who completed their programmes, 8,290 — 60 per cent — had obtained employment.

Another 317, or two per cent, were pursuing higher education, while 2,884, or 21 per cent, remained actively looking for work through JobCentre Brunei.

That left 2,348 people — 17 per cent of those who completed the programmes — outside those three clearly identified outcomes.

They had no recent employment record with the Employees Trust Fund, no recent JobCentre Brunei job-search record and no current record through the education channels checked.

The official data could therefore tell us where most programme completers went.

For these 2,348, it could not.

There could be many explanations. Some may have become self-employed, entered gig or informal work, assumed family responsibilities or simply stopped registering as active jobseekers.

But these are possibilities, not findings from the Hansard. And therein lies the more important employment question.

Government knows they entered the programmes. It knows they completed them. What the figures presented to LegCo cannot clearly tell us is what happened afterwards.

That is an awkward gap in a manpower system increasingly being asked to measure not merely training and placement, but retention, productivity, income and sustainable careers.

A person can complete a course without finding work. Someone can find work but leave several months later. Another may accept employment unrelated to the training received.

Yang Berhormat Dato Seri Setia Awang Haji Ahmaddin bin Haji Abdul Rahman, Coordinating Minister for Social Policies and Manpower, told Council that success should not be measured simply by the percentage of locals employed.

It should also consider placement and retention, skills, productivity, income and the number of Bruneians building sustainable careers in the country's key sectors.

That is a considerably more useful measure.

The question is no longer simply: Did we train them?

It becomes: Where did that training eventually take them?

Government programmes understandably measure participation: how many registered, completed the programme and obtained employment. Those numbers are necessary, but the more difficult measurement begins afterwards.

Where is that person one year later — still employed, earning more, building a career, working in the field for which he or she trained, or back looking for work?

Those answers tell us something programme-completion figures cannot.

They tell us whether an intervention changed someone's economic position rather than simply moving that person successfully through a training programme.

The difference is important.

A programme measures what Government delivered.

An outcome measures what changed for the person.

There is an interesting parallel elsewhere in the same LegCo proceedings.

Government is already bringing information from several agencies together through the Sistem Kebajikan Negara to identify households that may fall between welfare programmes.

The system incorporates information involving JAPEM, Zakat and Baitulmal authorities, the Ministry of Education and the Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Foundation.

Employment policy may benefit from the same thinking.

This need not mean greater surveillance of jobseekers.

It means understanding whether someone who leaves one database has moved successfully into economic activity — or simply fallen beyond the measurements being used.

The distinction matters.

A young Bruneian who becomes self-employed and another who becomes discouraged and stops searching could both appear similarly absent from the records cited.

Their circumstances could hardly be more different.

There may be a straightforward way to find out.

Take a representative sample of the 2,348 and follow up.

Where are they now?

Did the training help them obtain work?

If they found employment, did they stay?

If they left, why?

Was salary the problem? Transport? Working conditions? Family responsibilities? Skills mismatch? Or was the programme itself insufficiently connected to available jobs?

Perhaps many are doing well outside the records examined.

That would be useful to know.

Perhaps others encountered barriers that another training course alone will not solve.

That would be even more important to know.

Either answer would make future manpower planning better informed.

Understanding these 2,348 matters even more in the private sector, where 82,013 of 148,129 workers in 2025 were foreign workers.

The government has cautioned that those jobs cannot simply be replaced one-for-one by locals. Skills, suitability, job quality, workforce readiness and industry's actual requirements all matter.

And there lies another paradox: Brunei needs more locals in the private sector, yet for 2,348 Bruneians already put through workforce-development programmes, the available records cannot clearly tell us what came next.

They had already entered the workforce-development system.

Government invested resources in preparing them. They invested their own time and effort in completing the programmes.

For most programme completers, the records presented to LegCo identified what came next.

For 2,348, they did not.

They should not remain merely the 17 per cent at the bottom of a statistical breakdown.

Perhaps the next useful step in manpower planning begins with a simple question:

We trained you. What happened next?