KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 9 ― Malaysia’s unemployment has steadily decreased since June after the government reopened most economic sectors that had been closed due to the movement control order, Human Resources Minister Datuk M. Saravanan said.
He added that this trend was expected to continue into 2021 following the various government incentives introduced since the recovery movement control order (RMCO) was put in place.
He said the highest the unemployment rate reached was at 5.3 per cent in May.
This declined to 4.7 per cent in July and stayed that way until August. In September, it fell to 4.6 per cent and was now set to be 4.5 per cent, he told Parliament today.
“In May there were 821,100 people who were jobless according to the stats by DOSM (Department of Statistics Malaysia). The recovery of the employment rate was seen when it dropped to 4.9 per cent in June itself.
“It’s expected the unemployment rate will drop in December as well till 4.5 per cent and will continue till 2021,” Saravanan said during the ministers’ question time in Parliament today.
Machang MP Datuk Haji Ahmad Jazlan Yaakub then asked for the government’s measures to ensure incentives such as the wage subsidy were effective.
Ahmad Jazlan said many employers were still retrenching the assistance offered.
The minister said the government has also introduced programmes such as MYFutureJobs to supplement existing initiatives.