June unemployment rate at lowest since start of Covid-19 pandemic

The unemployment rate continues to show a downward trend, recording 3.8% in June 2022, the lowest since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in the country, says Minister in the Prime Minister's Department (Economy) Mustapa Mohamed.

He said the number of unemployed people decreased to 630,600 in June 2022 from 637,700 the previous month.

Citing the June 2022 Malaysian Labour Force Statistics published by the statistics department today, Mustapa said the country had been at full employment since April 2022, in terms of the unemployment rate being below 4% as defined by Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

He said the position of the labour force had become more stable following the 0.2% increase in the number of workers to 16.57 million compared to 16.54 million in May 2022.

The labour force participation rate for the month remained at 69.5%.

"The achievement of the labour market in June 2022 is in line with the current stronger economic activity following the transition to the endemic phase across the country.

"The demand for labour has increased, thus opening up more job opportunities in the market," Mustapa said in a statement today.

He said some key economic indicators also showed an encouraging performance such as the volume of trade, which increased by 43.4% in June 2022 to a new high of RM270.4 billion with exports recording an increase of 38.8% to RM146.2 billion.

Mustapa said the Industrial Production Index grew 12.1% in June 2022, the most since May 2021, with all components recording positive growth.

The sales value of the manufacturing sector in June 2022 meanwhile increased by 23.4%, the most since May 2021, recording a sales value of RM153.5 billion, he said, adding that the achievement was mainly driven by the electrical and electronic equipment sub-sector which increased by 25.4%.
 
Going by this development, Mustapa said he was confident that the country's economy would continue to grow this year at the targeted rate of between 5.3% and 6.3%.

"The long-term trend of the national unemployment rate is around 3.4% (average for the period 2011-2021).

"Taking into account various key economic indicators that reflect better recovery momentum and the expectation that more job opportunities will be created, the unemployment rate is expected to move to a long-term trend," he added.