MALAYSIA’S unemployment rate worsened between April and May to 5.3%, affecting some 826,100 people, the Statistics Department said.

The 0.3% increase from April affected workers in the services, tourism, event planning, entertainment and sports sectors.

Chief Statistician Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin, in a statement on the figures, said despite the increase, it was an improvement compared with earlier months when movement controls restrictions were first enforced to curb the spread of Covid-19. 

“The increase in the number of unemployed persons in May 2020 is still lower than the rate of increase from March to April, which involved an increase of 168,300 people.

“This could have been due to Putrajaya introducing stimulus packages to help the economy, while, at the same time, more businesses were allowed to operate under the conditional movement control order (CMCO).

Uzir also said the number of workers who were temporarily unemployed halved in May to around 2.27 million people, compared with 4.87 million in April.

He said this category is considered not fully unemployed as they had jobs that did not allow them to work from home, but to which they could return to now that most economic sectors have reopened.

As of May, 15.7 million people are in the labour force, a marginal increase by 1,800 people from April. 

Uzir said labour participation is expected to improve as the government takes measures to revive the economy. – July 14, 2020.