Friday 29 Mar 2024
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KUALA LUMPUR (Aug 15): More jobs have been added to the economy in the first half of the year (1H17), compared with the same period last year (1H16), despite an unchanged unemployment rate for the past four straight months, according to AmBank Research. 

In a report today, AmBank group chief economist Anthony Dass said 65,500 jobs have been added in June this year, which brings the total number of jobs created to 243,200 in 1H17.

He said this was a significant increase from the figures in 2016, in which 30,100 jobs were created in 1H16 and 98,900 for the full year 2016.

Unemployment rate remained unchanged for the fourth straight month in June at 3.4%, Dass said. He added labour force participation rate stayed at 67.8% for the second consecutive month in June.

Going forward, Dass sees the unemployment rate to be “sticky”, around 3.3%-3.4% for 2017, supported by steady GDP growth.

“We believe the net number of placed registrants which improved in 1H2017 to 1644K, will remain fairly favourable for the remaining months of the year,” Dass said.

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