PUTRAJAYA: Malaysia's unemployment rate returned to 3.0% in April 2026, with 511,800 unemployed persons recorded, according to the Labour Force Statistics for April released by the Statistics Department.
The unemployment rate during the month rose by 0.1 percentage points to 3.0% (March 2026: 2.9%), returning to the level recorded in October 2025.
Chief Statistician Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin said the number of employed persons continued to increase in April 2026, rising by 0.1% to 16.82 million persons against the previous month (March 2026: 16.80 million persons).
"The employees’ category constituted 75.0% of total employed persons in April 2026. This category increased marginally by 0.5%to 12.61 million persons (March 2026: 12.60 million persons).
"In the meantime, the number of own-account workers continued to trend upward and rose by 0.2% to 3.15 million persons against the preceding month,” he said in a statement on Thursday (June 11).
Providing further insight into the unemployment situation in April 2026, he highlighted that the actively unemployed, defined as those who were available for work and actively seeking jobs, accounted for 79.5% of the total unemployed persons.
This group posted an increase of 0.3% to 407,100 persons, and a total of 63.9% of the actively unemployed were unemployed for less than three months, while 5.0% were in long-term unemployment for more than a year.
"At the same time, the inactively unemployed, comprising those who believed that no jobs were available, went up by 1.5% to 104,700 persons compared with 103,200 persons in the previous month,” he added.
Commenting on Malaysia’s overall labour force performance for the month, he said the country’s labour market continued to show modest growth during the month, reflecting the economy’s steady expansion.
Accordingly, the labour force edged up 0.1% to 17.33 million persons compared to 17.31 million persons in March 2026.
Meanwhile, the labour force participation rate remained unchanged at 70.9%, the same as in the previous month. – Bernama
