Thursday 28 Mar 2024
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KUALA LUMPUR (Feb 18): Malaysia's employment continued to trend up in the fourth quarter of 2021 (4Q21) as demand for labour surged, pushing the national unemployment rate to 4.3% — the lowest level since the Covid-19 pandemic hit this country — said the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM) on Friday.

The unemployment rate declined 0.5% year-on-year (y-o-y) from 4.8% in 4Q20, while the number of unemployed persons fell 8.7% to 694,000 from 760,700 a year ago.

"This was also the first time unemployment eased to below 700,000 since the pandemic hit," said the DOSM in a statement.

In the same statement, DOSM chief statistician Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin said the national labour market regained momentum in 4Q21 as more businesses operated with full employment capacity and longer operational hours.

"During the quarter, schools and educational institutions were opened with admission of students in stages. On the social front, the removal of interstate travel ban coupled with permission to organise social and recreational events also stimulated domestic tourism activity. The positive development resulted in the gross domestic product rebounding by 3.6% after a contraction in the previous quarter," he said.

In terms of labour supply, higher labour participation was observed in 4Q21, reflected by labour force participation rate (LFPR), which edged up 0.2 percentage point y-o-y to 68.7% (4Q20: 68.5%).

The number of people in the labour force also rose 1.3% to record 16.14 million, predominantly contributed by the increase of 1.8% in employed persons, which accounted for 15.44 million persons (4Q20: 15.16 million).

Meanwhile, total jobs in the economic sector picked up for the first time after continuous declines for the last six quarters, registering growth of 0.9% y-o-y to 8.53 million jobs (4Q20: 8.46 million).

Although it remained lower than the pre-pandemic period, the number of jobs in 4Q21 was the highest during the public health crisis.

As for 2021, DOSM's preliminary estimates based on monthly average data indicated that the number of employed persons rose 3% to 15.4 million in 2021, exceeding 15.07 million recorded during pre-pandemic period in 2019.

However, the number of unemployed persons also increased further by 4.3% to 741,400 (2020: 711,000).

The unemployment rate recorded during 2021 was 4.6%, going up 0.1 percentage point from 4.5% in 2020.

Thus, the number of labour force rose by 3% to 16.14 million persons while LFPR edged up by 0.2 percentage point to 68.6%.

Last year, labour demand also improved as jobs in the private sector increased to 8.53 million after declining 2.4% to 8.46 million in 2020.

Nevertheless, the level of jobs in 2021 was still lower than the 8.66 million jobs recorded in 2019 amid the socio-economic restrictions to contain the pandemic, which prolonged into 2021.

"Undoubtedly, the Covid-19 crisis has impacted the global economy and the labour market. Malaysia is not an exception to this matter as the country has implemented multiple socio-economic restrictions to contain the public health crisis.

"It is anticipated that some of the effects on the labour market structure may be persistent even after Malaysia [enters the] endemic phase, with some sectors and occupations permanently shrinking while others expanding," said the DOSM.

Mohd Uzir also said that Malaysia's labour market in 4Q21 improved considerably amid the National Recovery Plan (NRP) compared with in 4Q20 when the country was under the Recovery Movement Control Order.

"Moving into the year 2022, the whole nation was in Phase 4 of the NRP with reopening of more socio-economic activities and further loosening of previous containment measures. Instead of yet another nationwide restriction, targeted mechanism designed by the government implemented to keep the situation at bay may give confidence to the businesses to sustain their operations and subsequently strengthen the labour market," he added.

Edited ByLam Jian Wyn
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