Number of unemployed down by 0.3% in April

PUTRAJAYA: The number of unemployed persons decreased in April by 0.3% to 586,900 persons compared to 588,700 last month, said the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM). As for unemployment rate in April, it stood at 3.5%, unchanged from March.

DOSM said the labour force in April recorded an addition of 0.2% to 16.84 million persons compared to 16.81 million in March.

“Accordingly, the labour force participation rate edged up 0.1 percentage points to 70% (March: 69.9%) indicating more labour participation in the market,” it said yesterday in the Statistics of the Labour Force, Malaysia, April 2023, as reported by Bernama.

DOSM said a month-on-month comparison showed that the number of employed persons in April inched up 0.2% to record 16.25 million persons versus 16.22 million in March.

The department said the unemployment rate for youth aged 15 to 24 years on a month-to-month basis decreased 0.1 percentage points to 11.1%, recording 315,600 persons versus 11.2% in March with 317,300 persons.

It also said the number of people outside the labour force in April recorded a marginal decline of 0.03% to 7.23 million persons compared with 7.23 million in March.

DOSM said the labour market is expected to grow modestly in the coming months with the Malaysian economy flourishing moderately.

“Malaysia’s economy is expected to maintain its positive growth in 2023 albeit at a slower pace than in 2022.

“This is supported by factors such as sustained domestic demand, improved labour market conditions, more stable inflation trends, and the recovery of tourist arrivals, whereby encouraging tourism activity is expected to positively impact the growth of the tourism sector and related industries,” it said.