Malaysia's August jobless rate rises to 3.1%

KUALA LUMPUR: The unemployment rate in the country increased marginally to 3.1% in August from 3.0 % in July, while it was 2.7 % in August 2012, the Statistics Department said.

However, the number of unemployed people in August rose by 20,600 persons or 4.9 percentage points to 441,800 persons, while the number of employed people showed positive growth with an increase of 173,300 (1.3 %) to 13.67 million people compared to July, it said.

The employment growth was driven by the services sector, particularly the wholesale and retail trade, and the repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles subsector, it added.

Compared to August last year, the number of unemployed people hiked by 27.2 percentage points from 347,200 people, while the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate inched up from 3.0 % in July to 3.2 % in August, the department said.

In August, the labour force participation rate rose 0.1 % to 69.1 % from 68.1 % in the previous month.

The increase was due to the rise in the number of people in the labour market by 193,900 or 1.4 % to 14.11 million persons and a reduction of 183,600 people or 2.8 % to 6.32 million people outside the labour force, the department added. — Bernama