KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 17 — The labour market continued its recovery at a steady pace in the third quarter (Q3) of 2022, with the unemployment rate lowered to 3.7 per cent as compared to 4.7 per cent in the same quarter of 2021 and slowly returning to how it was before the pandemic.
In a statement today, the Department of Statistics, Malaysia (DoSM) said in line with this, the number of unemployed persons decreased by 18 per cent to 611,800 persons from 746,200 recorded in the same quarter last year.
“In terms of labour supply in the third quarter of 2022, the number of employed persons rose by 3.6 per cent to 15.83 million persons as against the same quarter of the preceding year, which recorded 15.70 million persons.
“Higher employment growth than the decline in unemployment led to the number in the labour force to increase by 2.6 per cent to 16.44 million persons in the quarter. Hence, the labour force participation rate (LFPR) strengthened further by 1.1 percentage points to 69.4 per cent (Q3 2021: 68.3 per cent),” it said.
Chief Statistician Malaysia Datuk Seri Dr. Mohd Uzir Mahidin said in the third quarter of 2022, the country’s transition to the endemic phase allowed Malaysians to return to near-normal life after two years of battling the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Therefore, the economy continued to strengthen by 14.2 per cent in this quarter after posting a growth of 8.9 per cent in the previous quarter. Subsequently, employment continued to register a higher year-on-year increase while unemployment eased following the recovery of demand for labour by the economic sectors,” he said.
For the underemployment situation, he said with the strengthening of domestic demand throughout the third quarter of 2022, the number of persons working less than 30 hours per week persisted in trending down, with a decline of 38.2 per cent as against the same quarter in 2021, registering 287,200 persons (Q3 2021: 464,600).
On the performance of labour demand, Mohd Uzir said total jobs in the economic sector continued to improve by recording a year-on-year increase of 3.2 per cent to 8.68 million jobs (Q3 2021: 8.41 million), surpassing the pre-pandemic level.
“Moving into the fourth quarter of 2022, economic and social activities continue to normalise as the current Malaysia’s leading index is anticipating that the economy will continue to uphold its growth momentum.
“Hence, the overall labour market performance is also foreseen to sustain its positive momentum and be more resilient, signalling that Malaysia’s labour market is recovering, steered by the current development of the economic activity,” he said.
However, he said the viewpoint is subject to the various challenges in mitigating the effects of slow growth in the global economy and trade activity, as well as the impact of the flood disaster that may occur following the expected North East Monsoon or monsoon season in Malaysia which began in early November 2022 and is likely to continue until March 2023. — Bernama
