A look at Malaysia's labour market in Q4 2022

The quarter saw a 13.5% decline in the number of unemployed persons, accounting for 93,000 fewer people in unemployment.

Malaysia's labour force continued to indicate a positive momentum in Q4 of 2022, recording a 2.5% year-on-year increase from the year before, the Department of Statistics' (DOSM) Labour Market Review, Q4 2022 has revealed.

With that, the country's labour force participation rate (LFPR) grew by 0.8 percentage points (pp) to 69.5%, higher than pre-pandemic figures recorded in Q4 2019. At the same time, the number of employed persons continued to increase by 3.2%, to stand at 15.94mn persons in employment; while the employment-to-population ratio continued to trend up to 67%.

The review further revealed the following:

• A 13.5% decline in the number of unemployed persons, accounting for 93,000 fewer people in unemployment. In line with that, the unemployment rate in the quarter stood at 3.6%.
• Looking at the labour demand in the economic sector, the number of jobs increased by 2.6% year-on-year, to record a total of 8.75mn jobs. Additionally, the number of filled jobs, which comprised 97.8%, increased by 2.6% over the same quarter of the preceding year, to stand at 8.56mn.
• There were 4.8% more job openings in the economy in Q4 2022, bringing the total number of vacancies to 192,400. 
• There was a downward trend in the number of people who worked less than 30 hours a week (-3.8%), compared to Q4 of the year before. Accordingly, the rate of time-related underemployment declined to 1.1%.
• While that was so, skill-related underemployment, which comprised more than one-third of employed persons with tertiary education, decreased slightly by 0.1pp to record 37.4% in Q4 2022.

As previously reported on HRO, labour productivity in the quarter, as expressed by value added per employment, saw a year-on-year growth of 3.6%. By value added per hour worked, it improved by 1.9% year-on-year as the country’s economy expanded by 7%, while total hours worked went up 5% (Q3 2022: 10%). [More on this here]

"As we advance, the overall labour market performance is expected to remain positive and stable as demand for workers continues to be more resilient in supporting job creation and income growth, despite the challenges of an unprecedented situation that may occur in the future," DOSM said in its review.

Lead image / Shutterstock 

Infographics / DOSM  

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