MALAYSIA’S unemployment rate stood at 3.3% in 2019, according to the Statistics Department’s Malaysia Labour Force Survey Report 2019 released today.

Chief Statistician Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin said while the Covid-19 pandemic did not impact the unemployment rate for 2019, it is expected to leave an impact on labour force performance this year.

“The unemployment rate in 2019 was not affected by the negative impact caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. In January 2020, the unemployment rate was 3.2% and rose to 3.3% in February 2020,” he said in a statement on the labour survey report.

He added that the impact of the movement control order implemented after the World Health Organisation’s declared Covid-19 a global pandemic on March 11, will be reflected in the labour force indicator for March 2020 and overall of 2020.

Meanwhile, the labour force grew by 2% to 15.6 million persons in 2019 compared with 15.3 million persons in 2018. 

A total of 297,400 people were employed last year.

The number of employed with tertiary education rose by 0.8% points to 29.4% in 2019 compared to 28.6% in the year prior, while employed persons with primary education declined by 1.0 percentage points.

The labour force participation rate (LFPR) rose by 0.4 percentage points to 68.7% in 2019 as compared to 68.3% in 2018. 

This means the remaining 31.3% of the working age population were outside of the labour force.

As a whole, the LFPR for males was still higher than females for all age groups.

“Female LFPR rose 0.4 percentage points to 55.6 % in 2019. The participation of female in the labour market for the prime age groups namely 25 to 34 years (73.7%), 35 to 44 years (68.0%) and 45 to 54 years (58.9%) were higher compared to female LFPR at the national 1 level,” he said.

The participation of male labour force was 80.8% in 2019, up by 0.4 percentage point from the previous year. 

“The LFPR for age group of 15 to 24 years recorded the highest increase of 2.2 percentage points to 53.2%. The age group of 25 to 34 years also recorded an increase 0.4 percentage points to 96.1%.” – April 29, 2020.