Malaysia unemployment rate expected to improve to 4.5% for December, says minister

KUALA LUMPUR (Dec 9): The Ministry of Human Resources expects Malaysia’s unemployment rate to continue trending downwards to 4.5% for December, from a peak of 5.3% in May due to job losses after the enforcement of the Movement Control Order (MCO) starting March 18 this year.

Human Resources Minister M Saravanan told the Dewan Rakyat that the unemployment rate has been declining since its peak to 4.9% in June and 4.7% in July and August, based on the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM)’s labour survey.

He added that the labour survey showed that those working in the aviation, hotel and tourism industries were most affected by the Covid-19 outbreak.

In September, the figure improved to 4.6%, or approximately 737,500 unemployed, which he attributed to the various initiatives announced under the government’s stimulus packages.

“The unemployment rate is expected to continue declining to 4.5% and the declining trend will continue through to 2021,” he said, during the Ministers Question Time in Dewan Rakyat today in response to Machang MP Ahmad Jazlan Yaakub’s question on the number of job losses as a result of the MCO.

For the year up to Nov 27, a total of 120,296 people have regained jobs according to Social Security Organisation (Socso)’s data, said the minister, out of a total 372,934 jobseekers.

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