PUTRAJAYA – The unemployment rate dropped slightly in September as the number of unemployed fell by 0.6% month-on-month to 737,500 people, from August’s 741,600 people, according to the September report by the Statistics Department.
Employment increased that month with employed people rising 0.3% to 15.19 million people, mainly in the manufacturing and services sectors.
“A continuous recovery is seen in the country’s labour force supply amid challenges to contain the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic through various phases of the movement control order," said chief statistician Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin in a statement today.
He said a decline in employment was observed in the agriculture and construction sectors, possibly reflecting labour supply shortages in both sectors.
Mohd Uzir said the employment-to-population ratio for September remained at 65.2%.
He said the labour market situation for the month could also be seen through the Loss of Employment statistics reported by the Social Security Organisation, which recorded a decrease of 20.2% to 7,388 people that month compared with the previous month (9,261).
Mohd Uzir said the retrenchment numbers reported by the Labour Department also showed a declining trend, as MYFuture Jobs reported a total of 58,607 vacancies in the Employment Insurance System compared with 49,811 jobseekers.
On employment status, Mohd Uzir said the employees’ category rose by 14,900 people from the previous month to 11.73 million persons, with own-account workers up by 0.7% encompassing 2.43 million people.
"As for the labour force, a total of 15.93 million people registered in September with an increase of 0.2% from 15.90 million people in August. The labour force participation rate remained at 68.%," he said.
On the labour supply situation during the third quarter of this year, Mohd Uzir said the quarter saw a decline to 4.7% after recording a high rate of unemployment at 5.1% in the second quarter.
He also said the Statistics Department had revised the forecast of the unemployment rate for 2020 ranging from 4.4% to 4.7% against the earlier forecast of 3.5% to 5.5%.
"With this revised rate, the forecasted number of unemployed for the year 2020 will be in the range of 701,000 to 729,000 people," Mohd Uzir said. – Bernama, November 9, 2020
