Commenting on the release of the Labour Market Review, first quarter 2021 (LMR Q1 2021) today, chief statistician Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin said more people took part in the labour market in Q1 2021 as reflected by a smaller decrease in labour force participation – by 0.2 percentage points – to 68.6% as against the 0.6 percentage points decline in Q4 2020.
In terms of labour supply, he said employed persons recorded a slight year-on-year decline by 7,000 to 15.24 million people in Q1 2021 compared to a decrease of 93,000 people in the previous quarter.
Nevertheless, he said unemployed persons remained high since Q2 2020, with an addition of 225,000 from 547,000 people in Q1 2020 to record 772,000 unemployed people in the quarter under review.
“Accordingly, the unemployment rate increased by 1.3 percentage points year-on-year to 4.8% (Q1 2020: 3.5% ). Consequently, the labour force grew about 1.4% registering 16.01 million people from 15.79 million people in Q1 2020,” he said in a statement today.
In Q1 2021, the outside labour force increased by 2.1% to 7.32 million people compared to 7.16 million people in Q1 2020, he said.
Mohd Uzir said females made up more than two-thirds of the population outside the labour force, largely concentrated within the age of 15 to 34 years old.
“Although the majority of females was outside the labour force due to family responsibilities, the proportion who were in school or training continued to increase,” he said.
Meanwhile, he said a large share of the males outside the labour force was in the youth age group due to schooling or training.
“The non-participation of a relatively high number of young people aged 25 to 34 in the labour force could be attributed to a longer duration of education,” he explained.
Following the implementation of various stages of movement control orders (MCO) across the nation from January 2021, he said more economic activities had gradually resumed with strict standard operating procedures adherence since mid-February and early March.
“Hence, the labour demand during Q1 2021 decreased at a smaller rate of about 1.5% to record 8.44 million jobs as against 8.57 million jobs in Q1 2020,” he added.
Mohd Uzir said the decrease in the number of jobs was contributed by the decline of 141,000 filled jobs to 8.26 million.
“Although businesses struggle to survive during this pandemic, job vacancies in the economic sector rose by 12,000 to 178,000, indicating more jobs demand compared to the same quarter in the preceding year,” he said, adding that 17,000 jobs were created with more than half in the semi-skilled category.
“Year-on-year basis, although slower declines were observed for most of the indicators which signalled optimist recovery momentum, the labour market scenario during the quarter has not returned to the way it was during the pre-Covid-19 days,” he said.