Malaysia’s unemployment rate in March 2021 has dropped slightly to 4.7% from 4.8% in February, said the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM) in its latest labour force report. This amounts to 753,200 unemployed persons, as compared to the 777,500 individuals recorded in the previous month.

DOSM further noted that individuals who were actively unemployed – defined as those who are available for work and are actively seeking for jobs – have decreased by 3.2%, equivalent to 20,500 persons. As such, this group now records 626,900 persons as compared to 647,400 persons in February 2021. “More than half of the actively unemployed persons were categorised as those who were unemployed for less than three months (51.1%), while 10.9% of actively unemployed were in long-term unemployment of more than a year,” said DOSM in the report.

Meanwhile, the number of employed persons continued its upward trend for the fourth consecutive month. In March, it went up by 0.4%, bringing the number of employed persons from 15.27 million in February to 15.33 million persons.

“Since April 2020, the number of employed persons was on a year-on-year declining trend, but for the first time after eleven consecutive months, the number of employed persons registered a positive year-on-year growth of 0.6% (+96,900 persons),” commented DOSM.

Aside from that, Malaysia’s labour force also saw an increase of 0.2% in March – equivalent to 34,300 individuals – which brings the number to 16.08 million persons. The month also recorded a higher labour force participation rate at 68.6%, as compared to 68.5% in February 2021.

With regard to different categories of employment, the employee category saw an increase of 76,800 individuals, bringing the number from 11.87 million persons to 11.95 million persons in March. This category makes up 77.9% of the employed persons group. Own-account workers (self-employed individuals) also went up by 48,300 persons to register 2.58 million persons in March, as compared to 2.43 million persons in February. This group accounted for another 16.2% of the employed persons group. Lastly, the remaining 5.9% of overall employment is made up of unpaid family workers (2.7%) and employers (3.2%).

Chief statistician Dato’ Sri Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin attributed this improvement to the variations of movement control order (MCO) that were implemented during the month. “Unlike MCO 1.0 where most economic activities as well as national and interstate borders were closed, March this year saw most states were in recovery MCO (RMCO) while several others were in conditional MCO (CMCO) with most of the economic activities continued to operate in compliance with strict operating procedures,” he explained.

Aside from revealing the unemployment rate for March 2021, DOSM’s latest labour force report also shared information regarding the labour force for the first quarter of 2021 (1Q21). It noted that the unemployment rate in 1Q21 stood at 4.8%, with 771,800 unemployed persons. The number of employed persons, meanwhile, increased 0.5% to 15.24 million persons – particularly in the services, manufacturing, and construction sector.

Despite this positive momentum, Mohd Uzir also warned that the recovery of Malaysia’s labour force will be subjected to the uncertainties in the country’s health condition and economic performance. “The rising number of daily Covid-19 cases in Malaysia had prompted the implementation of restricted MCO in targeted areas and MCO in certain states, namely Kelantan, Sabah, Selangor, and Kuala Lumpur in May 2021,” he said, adding that these factors may disrupt the recovery in forthcoming months.

(Source: DOSM [1, 2])

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• Department of Statistics Malaysia
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• Unemployment
• Unemployment Rate