This, said Khazanah Research Institute (KRI), would compound already high unemployment rates in these states, unless the government intervened.

KRI’s “Work in an Evolving Malaysia” is the second part of its State of the Household series, which studied how the job landscape has changed in the country over the last 30 years.

During a webinar, KRI researcher Nur Thuraya Sazali said the country’s overall shift towards technological and professional jobs meant that opportunities were drying up for Malaysia’s largest segment of workers.

“The majority of our workers are in semi-skilled occupations, they made up around 10 million workers in 2019,” she said, noting that “semi-skilled” described jobs such as those in sales and services, clerical roles, and in agriculture and crafts.

KRI’s research shows that these semi- to low-skilled jobs are most at risk of being affected by changes in business structure brought about by the pandemic.

“These groups not only face a higher automation probability, they are also less likely to be able to work from home as Covid-19 may accelerate the automation of certain jobs,” she said.

Automation would disproportionately affect areas yet to transition towards higher skilled industries that have a larger proportion of semi-skilled workers, compounding unemployment rates that were high even before the pandemic struck.

Siti Aiysyah Tumin, another KRI researcher, said: “In 2019, the average unemployment (rate) was 3.3%, but when we break that down by different state groups, we see in less advanced states that the unemployment rate is much higher.”

She added that in East Malaysia the unemployment figure was at 4.7% while in Selangor, Putrajaya and Kuala Lumpur, it was less than 3%.

Aiysyah said policymakers could combat this disparity between regions by looking at the areas that had thrived in their transition towards high value manufacturing and find ways to stimulate the same growth elsewhere.

“In less advanced states, they are still catching up, so policymakers should focus on how they can help these areas shift from lower-skilled to higher-skilled workers.

“As we move along in our development, we figure out what works. So for the benefit of less advanced states, what’s important is to take the lessons learned from the advanced states and apply them in other areas.”