PETALING JAYA (June 29): The Labour Force Survey 2014 (LFS) conducted by the Statistics Department reported that Malaysia’s increase in labour participation to 67.5% last year could be attributed to female participation in the work market.

In a press statement today, the department pointed out that there was a 0.5% increase for the working age population between 15 to 64 years old in total with a 1.2% increase for women at work.

“The increase of 0.5 percentage point was contributed to the rise in the number of employed persons by 322,100 persons to 13.5 million persons out of the total labour force of 13.9 million persons.

“The increase of female employed persons contributed to the increase of the overall labour-force-participation-rate (LPFR). Female LPFR increased by 1.2 percentage points reaching 53.6% in 2014. Female participation in the labour market were high, exceeding 55% for the prime age groups that is 25–34, 35–44 and 45–54,” said the report.

However, comparatively female unemployment rate recorded higher when compared to males, recording at 3.2% against 2.7% although there are more unemployed males (227.5 thousand persons) to female (172,000 person).

Last year unemployment dropped by 0.2 percentage points to 2.9% as the number of unemployed persons dropped to 25,100 persons when compared to 2013.

Rural unemployment was at 3% when compared to urban areas at 2.8%.

The survey also saw tertiary level educated workers rising to 26.4% in 2014 while the number of secondary level educated workers shrinking by 0.5% and workers with primary and those without formal education dropping by 1.1% and 0.3% respectively.

Prime age employment (25–54) also rose by 0.4% to 76.2% last year.