PUTRAJAYA: The number of unemployed decreased to 533,800 in January 2025, an unemployment rate of 3.1%, according to the Labour Force Statistics for January 2025.
This marks a 0.9% drop from the 538,500 unemployed persons in December 2024.
Chief Statistician Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin said the country's labour market was in an upward trend, reflecting the ongoing improvement in the nation's economic conditions despite some challenges in trade and inflation.
"Therefore, the labour force in January 2025 improved further, increasing by 0.3% month-on-month to 17.22 million people (up from 17.17 million in December 2024). The labour force participation rate remained at 70.6% as in the previous month," he said in a statement on Tuesday (March 11).
Mohd Uzir added that the number of employed persons continued to improve, registering a 0.3% increase to reach 16.68 million persons, compared to 16.63 million in December 2024.
Elaborating on the employment situation, he said the majority of those employed in January 2025 were in the employees' category, constituting 75.3% (an increase of 0.3%) to 12.56 million people (up from 12.53 million in December 2024:).
The own-account workers category also increased by 0.7% to 3.11 million people, compared to 3.09 million in December 2024.
Regarding the unemployment situation, Mohd Uzir said that 79.4% of the total unemployed persons were actively unemployed, or those who were available for work and were actively seeking jobs.
"In this category, the number fell by 0.5% to 423,600 people compared to 425,700 people in December 2024.
"By duration of unemployment for the actively unemployed, 63.6% were unemployed for less than three months, while 5.6% were in long-term unemployment for more than a year. In the meantime, the inactively unemployed, or those who believed that there were no jobs available, decreased by 2.3% to 110,200 people," he added.
In January 2025, the unemployment rate for those aged 15 to 24 stood at 10.3%, registering 299,300 unemployed youths compared to the preceding month (10.4% or 301,400 people in Decenber 2024). – Bernama
