More Than Half A Million Malaysians Are Unemployed

There are currently 588,700 people who are unemployed nationwide as Malaysia hits an unemployment rate of 3.5 per cent, according to Human Resources Minister V Sivakumar.

Out of the number, Sabah holds the highest amount of unemployment with 169,800 jobless people, which means that 29 per cent of the unemployed people in Malaysia are from the state.

“The unemployment rate in Sabah reached 7.7% in the first quarter of this year and this rate is also more than doubled the 3.5% for the whole country.”

“However, the percentage of unemployment in Sabah showed a decrease compared to 9.1% in the first quarter of last year following economic recovery after the Covid-19 pandemic,” states Sivakumar.

Sivakumar was speaking at the opening of the Sabah State Labour Convention in conjunction with the Human Resources Ministry’s Customer Meeting Day Programme at the Kota Kinabalu Convention Centre.

While the number of people unemployed in Malaysia looks high, the overall number is a slight decrease compared to January 2023, which was 596,100 people and a 3.6 per cent unemployment rate.

Furthermore, the number of Malaysians outside the work force in 2023 now total 7.24 million. According to the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM), housework/ family responsibilities were the main reason for those choosing to stay outside the labour force totaling 43.0 per cent, followed by schooling/ training with 40.8 per cent.

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