JULY’S unemployment rate remained unchanged from the previous month’s at 4.8%, in part due to the National Recovery Plan (NRD) which allowed some states to move into phase 2, the Department of Statistics said today.

Despite the same unemployment rate as June’s, there was still a slight increase by 1.2% in unemployed persons, raising the total number of people affected to 778,200 for July.

The number of employed persons also registered a very small month-on-month decline of 0.02% in July.

Chief Statistician of Malaysia Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin said eight states, which moved into phase 2 of the NRP in stages whereby more economic activities could operate, “signalled some positive effects to the economy and subsequently to the labour force situation in these states”.

“The implementation of NRP has allowed some flexibility for economic and services activities to resume in line with the NRP’s phases. This targeted strategy has brought some light for the labour market to recover progressively,” Uzir said.

The entire labour force in July was 16.07 million persons, he added when releasing the department’s monthly labour force statistics today.

The NRP also enabled the number of people temporarily not working to drop by 3.1% or 776,300 persons in July, after registering an increase for two consecutive months.

By economic sector, Uzir said all sectors posted month-on-month declines except for the services sector, which recorded small positive change after registering a decline in the previous month. 

“Food and beverage, transport and storage, and information and communication were among the main contributors to the positive growth in the services sector,” he said.

Active job seekers who were unemployed also increased by 1.3% to 651,300 people compared to June. This group comprised 83.7% of the total unemployed persons.

Another group categorised as “inactively unemployed” who believed that there were no jobs available, increased by 0.8% to 126,900 people from the previous month. – September 9, 2021.