KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia recorded an increase in the unemployment rate in June due to the impact of the tighter restrictions to curb the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The latest data by the Statistics Department showed that June unemployment rose by 4.8% to 768,700 from 4.5% in May after four consecutive months of decreases.
Chief Statistician Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin said year-on-year, the unemployment rate edged down by 0.1 percentage point as compared to 4.9% in June 2020.
The number of unemployed persons declined by 4,600 from June last year’s 773,200.
“Hence, the number of employed persons in June 2021 declined by 0.5% to record 15.30 million persons (May 2021: 15.37 million persons) while employment-to-population ratio fell by 0.4 percentage points to 65%
“Subsequently, the unemployment rate climbed to 4.8% (May 2021: 4.5%),” he said.
Commenting on the June labour data, Mohd Uzir said it was a challenging labour force situation as the country continued to take steps to flatten the surge of Covid-19 cases.
The rise in new daily cases has resulted in the implementation of full movement control order (MCO) during the month whereby only essential economy and services sectors were permitted to operate.
They were business activities related to food and beverage, utilities, security, health and medical care, transportation, banking, communications and essential construction activities.
Small businesses such as food or beverage stalls or hawkers were also allowed to operate during this period.
Elaborating further on the unemployment situation during the month, Mohd Uzir said: “The actively unemployed or those who were available for work and were actively seeking job encompassed 83.6% from the total unemployed persons.
“This number went up by 33,000 persons to record 642,900 persons (May 2021: 609,900 persons).
“Those who were unemployed for less than three months accounted for 52.3% of the actively unemployed while 9.8% was those who were in long-term unemployment of more than a year,” he said.
Mohd Uzir said the National Covid-19 Vaccination Programme is speeding up the pace hence it may boost the households and businesses confidence to stimulate economic activity.
“Moreover, various initiatives are also implemented to support business continuity through Pakej Pelindungan Rakyat dan Pemulihan Ekonomi (Pemulih or National People’s Well-Being and Economic Recovery Package).
“With the programmes, the economy and labour market may rebound, not considering the new and more lethal Covid-19 variants,” he said.
Since the Covid-19 pandemic was declared in March last year, the government has launched eight stimulus packages worth RM530bil to address the crisis.