AROUND this time a year ago, I wrote about unemployment in our country. The unemployment rate was at 5.3% then (May 2020). The latest Labour Force Statistics report from the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM) shows that as of May 2021, the unemployment rate had dropped to 4.5%. This is, however, hardly an improvement.

A recent publication by DOSM – Salary and Wages Survey Report 2020 – revealed an overall 9% decline of mean income last year. Which means those that are employed are generally getting paid less compared to the previous year, including the skilled workforce, which suffered the highest decrease among all groups in salaries and wages in 2020.

This comes as no surprise as no one is spared the wrath of Covid-19. Businesses not only have to adapt to various standard operating procedure (SOP), and policy flip-flops, as part of the measures to contain the spread of Covid-19 in workplaces, some sectors have not even been allowed to operate for certain parts of the year. It is evident now that the movement restriction approach taken by the government was less than satisfactory and has resulted in the instability of the job market.

In the same publication, there is a sub-category under “employed”, which highlights “paid employee who works for at least one hour per week, but less than six hours a day, or 20 days a month during the reference month”, a set of data not subdivided in the Labour Force Statistics report. It shows that in 2020, 400,300 employed citizens fell into this category, a significant surge in numbers from 145,400 in 2019.

There’s no sub-categorisation in the foreign labour category in the publication. However, we can assume that foreign workers are in a similar predicament, if not worse.

This reflects that although employed, these people are working fewer hours, thus having less income to bring home to their families. Therefore, we have to look beyond the numbers of employed persons as, although it has increased, there are plenty that are not earning enough.

Earlier this year, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Economy) Mustapa Mohamed made an insensitive comment about how graduates should be grateful even if they get a job with a low salary. He attributes the weak job market to the pandemic, stating and I quote “It could have been worse without the measures taken by the government.”

The fact is, it’s worse precisely because of the measures (or lack thereof) taken by the government.

We’ve seen many people unable to enjoy job security like before. Just last week I received a J&T express parcel from a delivery man driving a new Honda Civic. An educated guess suggests that he was probably one of the many casualties that suffered from a job loss or a drop in income in the pandemic.

Pay attention around you, you may find many stories similar to this. The white flag movement comes to mind.

Further problems will arise when the government scales back the monetary aid.

Let us not forget about the pandemic’s far-reaching social impact.

Our country has reported an average of three suicides daily this year up to May. Besides that, there are many more individuals who suffer from other mental health issues such as stress, depression, and so on.

It’s not to be taken lightly, as these mental and behavioural changes could eventually manifest itself into suicidal thoughts.

I’d like to point out that these far-reaching societal impacts are a result of government policies that reacted to the pandemic, rather than the coronavirus itself.

Whatever measures (or lack thereof) taken until this point to contain the spread of Covid-19 is slowly killing the country in another manner.

However, there’s been a noticeable shift in the government’s narrative and strategy recently.

Health Ministry director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah tweeted on July 6 that the widespread testing of asymptomatic populations is not currently recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO), as opposed to the aggressive mass screening strategy that was consistently championed by some, including those in the opposition.

In addition, in Noor Hisham’s recent daily press releases, there is a never-before included dataset that shows the majority of confirmed cases fall into categories one and two; those showing no or mild symptoms (96% on July 15, 98.5% on July 16, 98.2% on July 17 respectively). In other words, a majority of cases do not require hospitalisation, or even any medical treatment, and only require being quarantined.

Even Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin echoed the statement by attributing the reduction of incidents with severe symptoms to the surge of vaccine deployment in Klang Valley. This is true as vaccines do reduce the severity of the illness in those infected. This justifies the decision to lift the enhanced movement-control order (EMCO) in spite of the high numbers of confirmed cases even though vaccine coverage has yet to reach critical mass in certain areas.

Furthermore, the Muhyiddin government is now mulling the idea of implementing a vaccine passport policy to ease restrictions for those who have completed their two doses.

Also, there’s no longer a state-wide lockdown for the states that have transitioned into Phase Two of the National Recovery Plan (NRP), said NRP coordinating minister Tengku Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz.

What a coincidence, suddenly there’s more transparency of data, and more clarity and consistency in policy implementation from the different ministerial departments as we are nearing the expiration of the emergency ordinance and the convening of Parliament.

It certainly took them long enough to finally admit that moving forward is needed if we are to coexist with the coronavirus.

All of it could’ve taken place earlier when the people asked for more transparency in data in the first place. They missed the opportunity to educate the public on what number matters, rather than fixating on the daily numbers of confirmed cases.

They missed the opportunity to contain the virus with short, precise and science-based targeted lockdown measures much earlier last year.

They missed the opportunity to requisition private healthcare facilities to treat Covid-19 patients, causing a huge strain on the public healthcare system.

They missed the opportunity to revitalise the economy sooner.

Instead, what we had was a prolonged and half-baked movement-control order coupled with a state of emergency, which served little notable purpose other than suspending Parliament for the better half of a year.

Let’s hope that this time the government finally sticks to the recovery plan, but we have every right to be sceptical of the government since it’s not the first time they’ve made sudden flips. Let’s hold on to our horses until we’re out of the woods before judging.

That being said, we still have a lot to deal with when we reach the post-pandemic world. With the weakening job market, underemployment will continue to be an issue; the country’s workforce will continue to suffer a lower mean income and social problems will follow.

All these issues already existed pre-pandemic but are amplified by the government’s inability to effectively manage the pandemic in its early stages. Moving forward, more effort is required to repair the devastation caused to our society and economy, and to put our country back on track.

The question is, is the current or the future government ready to show us proper statesmanship this time around? – July 19, 2021.

* Kelvin Lee is a member of Agora Society. Both a dreamer and realist, he is constantly figuring out ways to balance the two. He believes that by defying the norm, one can pave the way for a better future.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.