It rose to 772,000 from January to March this year, compared with 547,000 in the same quarter last year, chief statistician Mohd Uzir Mahidin said.

And, accordingly, the unemployment rate increased 1.3% year-on-year to 4.8%.

This led to the labour force – those who can work but do not necessarily have a job – growing 1.4%, registering 16.01 million people, compared with 15.79 million over the same same quarter last year.

During the same period, the outside labour force increased by 2.1% to 7.32 million persons.

In a statement, Uzir said that as far as labour demand is concerned, the implementation of various movement restrictions since January has seen more economic activities gradually resume.

Hence, labour demand during the quarter decreased by a smaller rate of 1.5% to record 8.44 million jobs as against the first quarter of 2020 with 8.57 million jobs.

“Although businesses struggle to survive during this pandemic, job vacancies in the economic sector rose by 12,000 to 178,000, indicating more job demand as compared to the same quarter in the preceding year.”

He also said that 17,000 jobs were created with more than half being in the semi-skilled category.

On average, he said, there were 27,409 job vacancies advertised each month before the Covid-19 pandemic.

“However, the volume of online job vacancies posting showed a declining trend from January 2020, indicating the pandemic’s adverse impacts and its related containment measures.”

Uzir said overall, the labour market scenario during the first quarter of 2021 has not returned to what it was during the pre-Covid era.

The latest round of the movement control orders and the surge in infections, he said, present a new set of challenges and might prolong “the unfavourable situation faced by businesses” in the second quarter of 2021.

“This may cause some interference to the labour market recovery momentum.”