KUALA LUMPUR – The unemployment rate in Malaysia climbed to 4.8% or 768,700 in June, the Statistics Department reported today.
Chief Statistician Datuk Seri Mohd Uzir Mahidin said the unemployment rate for May was at 4.5% with 728,100 unemployed persons.
He said as the country continued to endeavour to flatten the surge of Covid-19 cases, the total lockdown’s effects on the labour force – whereby only essential sectors were permitted to operate – came to bear in June.
“Hence, the number of employed persons in June declined by 0.5% to record 15.3 million persons (compared to 15.37 million in May) with the employment-to-population ratio falling by 0.4 percentage points to 65%,” he said in a statement.
In addition, he said some of the labour force had moved into inactivity which led to a decline to 16.07 million persons compared to 16.1 million persons in the previous month, and it was the first decrease recorded since April last year when the pandemic hit the country.
Meanwhile, self-employed individuals rose by 4,100 persons to 2.5 million persons compared to 2.49 million persons in May.
Elaborating on the unemployment rate for June 2021, Uzir said the actively unemployed, which comprised 83.6% of the total unemployed persons, recorded an increase of 33,000 persons to 642,900 persons compared to 609,900 persons in May.
“Those who were unemployed for less than three months accounted for 52.3% of the actively unemployed while 9.8% were those in long-term unemployment of more than a year,” he said.
On the overall performance for the second quarter of 2021, Uzir said the number within the labour force reduced by 36,100 persons to 15.97 million persons, as both employed and unemployed persons declined.
He added that the unemployment rate for the second quarter stood at 4.8% or 764,900 persons.
The five states recording the highest unemployment rates in the second quarter were Labuan with 8.8%, followed by Sabah (8.7%), Perlis (5.3%), Kelantan (4.8%) and Selangor (4.4%), he said. – Bernama, August 9, 2021
