Highest unemployment rate recorded in Sabah

KOTA KINABALU: Sabah has the highest number of unemployed in the country, making up some 29% of the total of 588,700 jobless people in Malaysia, says Human Resources Minister V. Sivakumar.

He said there were currently some 169,800 jobless people in Sabah.

“The unemployment rate in Sabah reached 7.7% in the first quarter of this year, which is also more than double the 3.5% rate for the whole country,” he said when opening the state-level Labour Convention here yesterday.

“However, the percentage of unemployment in Sabah has shown a decrease compared to 9.1% in the first quarter of 2022 following the Covid-19 pandemic economic recovery,” he said.

Earlier in his speech, he expressed hope that Sabah’s labour-related issues would be better resolved with the setting up of a Sabah Labour Advisory Council in June.

“On June 14, the Sabah Cabinet, together with the Federal Government, agreed to set up the Sabah Labour Advisory Council to better address issues relating to labour in the state,” he said.

Sivakumar said this was an important platform involving three parties – employer, employee and government – that will provide a space and opportunity for all three to sit down and discuss Sabah’s labour issues.

He said with Sabah’s unique labour-related issues and conditions, the methods to address any problem had to also differ from those of their counterparts in the peninsula.