DOSM: Malaysia’s Employment Rate Expected To Improve This Year

Nur Adilah Ramli

28th April 2022 - 3 min read

Chief statistician of the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM), Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin has indicated that Malaysia’s employment rate is expected to improve further in 2022, based on the gradual recovery in the labour force last year.

Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin said that the nation’s labour force – which consisted of employed and unemployed individuals – increased from 15.7 million in 2020 to 15.8 million in 2021. Of these, the number of employed individuals rose by 0.7% to 15.1 million individuals, while the number of unemployed individuals increased by 3.1% to 733,000 individuals.

“The reopening of more economic and social activities had encouraged the inactive groups to shift into the labour force, either to be employed or in search for jobs,” the chief statistician further stated.

In terms of the occupation category, Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin noted that the semi-skilled category recorded the highest number of employed individuals, accounting for 57.7% or 8.7 million of the total employed individuals in 2021. This was followed by the skilled category (29.6% or 4.5 million individuals) and the low-skilled category (12.7% or 1.9 million individuals).

Breaking down the employed individuals group, Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Uzir said that the employees category – which made up 78.5% of the group in 2021 – increased to 11.8 million in 2021 from 11.6 million individuals in the previous year. Meanwhile, the self-employed category – which formed 14.8% of the total employed persons – decreased to 2.2 million individuals. This is likely due to the impact of the prolonged pandemic, which affected many businesses, especially the small and micro enterprises.

With regard to Malaysia’s unemployment rate, the chief statistician said that the rate in 2021 stood at 4.6% – an increase of 0.1% from the previous year. This translates to 733,000 unemployed individuals recorded in 2021, compared to 711,000 a year before. Among the states, Sabah recorded the highest unemployment rate at 8.2%, followed by Wilayah Persekutuan Labuan (7.4%) and Perak (5.3%). On the other hand, Putrajaya (1.6%), Melaka (2%) and Pahang (3.3%) registered some of the lowest unemployment rates in 2021.

Finally, Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Uzir stated that the labour market in Malaysia has shown encouraging progress since last January, attributing it to the country’s transition to the fourth phase of the National Recovery Plan.

“These positive developments may contribute towards the hiring of more employees and creation of new jobs, consequently providing the impetus for economic growth. Therefore, Malaysia’s labour market is foreseen to speed up the recovery momentum in the near future as the economy continues to improve,” Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Uzir further commented.

(Sources: Malay Mail, Department of Statistics Malaysia)

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