The latest labour report by the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM) indicated that Malaysia’s unemployment rate has continued to ease, from 4.6% in August 2021 to 4.5% in September 2021. This translates to a total of 729,600 unemployed persons in September, down from August’s number of 748,800 unemployed individuals.

Chief statistician Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin said that this improvement in the labour force situation is due to the gradual reopening of the country’s economy. “The transition of more states into the next phases of National Recovery Plan (PPN) has allowed more business activities to resume while business hours have been extended. In addition, the permission of inter-states travelling in the Klang Valley area coupled with the reopening of domestic tourism industries in Terengganu and Langkawi also fostered more economic activities during the month,” he said in a statement.

DOSM’s report also noted that actively unemployed individuals make up 83.7% of the total unemployed persons in September 2021, lessening by 2.6% from August. This is equivalent to 611,000 persons, in comparison to 627,500 individuals in August. Actively unemployed individuals are described as those who are out of job, but are actively seeking for work.

Meanwhile, the number of employed individuals continued to increase by 0.6% month-on-month, registering 15.46 million people, as compared to the previous month’s figure of 15.38 million persons. The employee category – which makes up a big chunk of the employed individuals group – encompassed 77.1% of it, improving by 0.2% to 11.93 million persons from the previous month. The own-account workers category, too, increased by 1.4% to 2.57 million persons in September.

Aside from sharing monthly updates, the DOSM report also provided details on Malaysia’s labour force for the third quarter of 2021 (3Q21). It noted that the number of labour force has increased by 0.3% quarter-on-quarter to 16.02 million persons, in comparison with 15.97 million persons in the second quarter of 2021 (2Q21). Additionally, the number of employed persons rose by 0.4%, whereas the unemployment rate dipped from 4.8% in 2Q21 to 4.7% in 3Q21.

Moving forward, Datuk Seri Uzir said that Malaysia’s unemployment rate should continue to improve. “The continuous dynamic economy activities will accelerate the recovery process of the business and subsequently attribute to the increase in labour demand, resulting in the creation of more job opportunities. The country’s economy is most likely to pick up in the upcoming months, indicated by better performance of the leading index,” he said.

(Source: DOSM [1, 2])

• TAGS:
• Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin
• Department of Statistics Malaysia
• DOSM
• Malaysia Unemployment Rate
• Unemployment
• Unemployment Rate