Malaysia’s unemployment rate saw another marginal decline in May 2021, down by 0.1% from April 2021 to settle at 4.5%. This is according to the latest labour report by the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM).

Following the dip, the number of unemployed individuals has declined accordingly from 742,700 in April to 728,100 persons. Of the overall total, more than 80% were actively unemployed, although DOSM noted that the size of this group has also reduced from 618,700 persons in April to 609,900 in May.

“Among the actively unemployed who were available for work and were actively seeking jobs, 52.2% were unemployed for less than three months while those who were in long-term unemployment of more than one year comprised of 10.2%,” DOSM’s report further clarified.

Meanwhile, with regard to employed persons, DOSM said that the number of this group has also continued to increase by 0.1% since April to 15.37 million individuals in May. In April, the department recorded a total of 15.35 million employed persons. By economic sector, the number of employed individuals in the services sector and manufacturing sector were both able to maintain its upward trend. However, employed persons in construction, agriculture, as well as mining and quarrying sectors declined.

In a statement, chief statistician Dato’ Sri Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin also drew a year-on-year comparison between the unemployment rate in May 2020 and 2021. “In May last year, the country experienced an all-time high monthly unemployment rate of 5.3% with 826,100 unemployed persons. Thus, in comparison with the same month of the previous year, the number was smaller yet still above 500,000 persons recorded during the pre-pandemic period,” he said.

Dato’ Sri Uzir further commented that the labour market will continue to face challenges in maintaining its recovery momentum moving forward, given the reimplementation of the total lockdown in June 2021 to combat yet another Covid-19 wave.

“However, efforts are underway to ensure more people are vaccinated under the National Covid-19 Vaccination Programme to guarantee that the country reach the objective of herd immunity by the end of the year. Furthermore, various initiatives were introduced under the PEMULIH package to support businesses and sustain employees in the labour market. Therefore, it is hoped that these measures will help the economic activities to gain its recovery momentum, thereby sustaining the labour market situation in the forthcoming months,” said Dato’ Sri Uzir.

(Source: DOSM [1, 2])

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• Covid-19
• Department of Statistics Malaysia
• DOSM
• Unemployment
• Unemployment Rate