Unemployment rate expected to fall to 4 pct next year

According to the Economic Outlook 2022, the unemployment rate is expected to decrease compared to this year which remained relatively high at 4.6 to 4.8 per cent or 757,200 persons compared to 4.3 per cent for the same period last year.

"The normalisation of economic activities to the pre-pandemic level will stimulate strong labour demand and spur a fast-track recovery in the labour market," it said.

Next year's total employment is projected to further expand by 2.3 per cent to 15.5 million persons, with the services sector remaining as the major source of employment at 64.8 per cent, followed by manufacturing (16.6%) and agriculture (10.2%) sectors.

As for this year, the total employment is projected to improve by 1.1 per cent to 15.1 million persons, with the services sector remaining as the major source of employment at 64.5 per cent, mainly in the wholesale and retail trade subsector (17.7%), as well as accommodation and food and beverages services (15.1%).

In addition, the report also stated that the labour force participation rate showed a marginal increase to 68.5 per cent.

However, the continuation of various initiatives to stabilise the labour market, coupled with the rapid vaccination rate, had provided some relief to the labour market and assisted more employers to retain workers.

Hence, the number of retrenchments, mainly in the manufacturing sector and tourism-related industries, declined significantly by 31.1 per cent to 34,729 persons at end of last June compared with the same period last year.

The outlook listed down that retrenchments were mainly in Selangor, Kuala Lumpur and Johor, where the Enhanced Movement Control Order was implemented.

Apart from that, job vacancies increased significantly, with over 258,000 positions last June compared to around 31,000 in the same period last year.

Nevertheless, jobs placement was not encouraging at only 26.2 per cent of total vacancies despite various incentives to encourage hiring under the stimulus packages.

Furthermore, the pandemic has discouraged job seekers from looking for jobs as the active job seekers fell by 45.6 per cent to around 151,000 persons.