PETALING JAYA: Malaysia’s unemployment rate is at its lowest since the Covid-19 pandemic struck, standing at 3.8% in June.
Economic affairs minister Mustapa Mohamed said this was a 0.1% decrease from May with about 630,000 unemployed people in June compared with 637,700 the month before.
He said Malaysia achieved full employment in April, with the unemployment rate hovering under 4% since then while June saw a 0.2% increase in the nation’s workforce to 16.57 million people.
Mustapa, also known as Tok Pa, said there were other main economic indicators that were showing encouraging signs, including Malaysia’s total trade recording a new high of RM270.4 billion in June.
This was a 43.4% increase, with trade exports rising by 38.8% to RM146.2 billion.
Meanwhile, the industrial production index went up by 12.1%, the highest since May last year, with the manufacturing, electrical, and mining sectors recording 14.5%, 14.1% and 2.1% increases, respectively.
“Manufacturing sales in June increased by 23.4%, the highest since May 2021, recording RM135.5 billion worth of sales. This achievement was mainly driven by the electrical and electronic products (E&E) subsector,” he said in a statement.
Mustapa said the economy was expected to continue growing at the targeted rate of between 5.3% and 6.3%, while the unemployment rate was forecast to drop to 3.4%.
He said Putrajaya had predicted that the consistent decrease in the unemployment rate would be a long-term trend.
Source: https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2022/08/09/unemployment-at-lowest-since-covid-19-struck/