Malaysia registers lowest unemployment rate since last April

The Department of Statistics Malaysia said, “The continuous resumption of more economic and social and recreation activities led the labour force situation to remain stable in October. This was reflected by the higher number of employment during the month while unemployment was on a declining trend.

“The upward trend of employed persons persisted during October by registering an addition of 0.6% month-on-month to 15.55 million persons, with the employment-to-population ratio increasing by 0.3% from 65.5% in September to 65.8% in October.”

In addition, the number of unemployed persons continued to fall by 3.4% to 705,000 from 729,600 in September, said chief statistician Mohd Uzir Mahidin, adding that “although the number of unemployed persons was on a declining trend, it remained relatively higher than the pre-pandemic period”.

The number of people in the labour force in October also gained by 0.4 percentage point month-on-month to record 16.26 million persons with the labour force participation rate rising by 0.2 percentage point to 68.8%.

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By sector, the number of employed persons in the services sector continued to increase, especially in wholesale and retail trade, food and beverages, information and communications, and transport and storage.

Uzir expects the economic recovery to continue in the coming months as the National Recovery Plan accelerates vaccination among Malaysia’s population, and Budget 2022 targets to create employment opportunities.