PUTRAJAYA, Nov 8 — The number of unemployed in September continued to drop to 555,300 with an unemployment rate of 3.2 per cent, according to the September and Third Quarter (Q3) 2024 Labour Force Statistics issued by the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM).
Chief Statistician Datuk Seri Mohd Uzir Mahidin said the decreasing number of unemployed (August: 558,500 people) and the increase in the number of working people is a follow-up to the country’s encouraging economic performance and the country’s labour market position in September remains strong.
“Therefore, the labour force continued to grow in September with an increase of 0.1 per cent to 17.24 million people (August: 17.22 million people).
“In this regard, a higher Labour Force Participation Rate (KPTB) at 70.5 per cent, sees an increase of 0.1 percentage point compared to the previous month (August: 70.4 per cent),” he said in a statement today.
Elaborating on unemployment, Uzir said the unemployment rate for youth aged 15 to 24 increased 0.1 per cent to 10.5 per cent from last month with 304,200 people (August: 303,000 people).
The unemployment rate for youth aged 15 to 30 dropped to 6.3 per cent, recording 420,100 youth unemployed (August: 428,500).
Regarding the overall performance for the third quarter of the year (Q3) 2024, Mohd Uzir said the labour force shows a positive trend, increasing by 0.7 per cent quarter-to-quarter to 17.26 million people (Q2 2024: 17.15 million people).
“The working population increased by 0.7 per cent to 16.72 million people (Q2 2024: 16.59 million people) while the unemployed decreased by 1.8 per cent to 547,900 people (Q2 2024: 557,800), resulting in an unemployment rate of 3.2 per cent in Q3 2024 compared to 3.3 per cent in Q2 2024,” he said.
In terms of the unemployment rate and KPTB by state, Kedah recorded the lowest unemployment rate at 1.6 per cent in the quarter, followed by Selangor (1.9 per cent), while Penang and Putrajaya are at 2.0 per cent.
Selangor recorded the highest KPTB at 76.3 per cent, followed by Kuala Lumpur (74.9 per cent) and Johor (71.4 per cent).
— Bernama
