Malaysia's labour market regained momentum towards recovery in the fourth quarter of 2021 stimulated by revival of more economic and social activities. The unemployment rate in Q4 stood at 4.3%, down from 4.8% in Q4 2020 and down from 4.7% in Q3 2021, according to data from Statistics Malaysia.

The 4.3% rate is the lowest unemployment rate since the arrival of the pandemic in Malaysia.

The number of unemployed persons decreased year-on-year to 694,400 in the fourth quarter of 2021.

Employment continued to trend up as demand for labour surged. In Q4 2021, the number of employed persons registered a year-on-year increase of 1.8% to a record 15.44 million persons with employment-to-population ratio edging up to 65.7%.

Almost all states in Malaysia have transitioned to Phase 4 of the National Recovery Plan during Q4 2021 which allowed more businesses to operate with higher number of employees at one point of time whilst business hours were also extended.

In terms of labour demand in the economic sector, jobs grew 0.9% compared to the same quarter of the preceding year to a record 8.53 million jobs during Q4 2021. Filled jobs which comprised of 97.8% surged 0.8% year-on-year to record 8.34 million. Meanwhile jobs opening as reflected by the number of vacancies rose by 4.4% to 183,600 vacancies during the same quarter.

The total number of hours worked stood at 8.78 billion in Q4 2021 compared to 8.58 billion in Q4 2020. Job vacancies went up by 7,700 compared to the same period the year prior.

“The relentless focus towards stabilising the public health crisis coupled with continuation of various initiatives to ensure economic and labour market sustainability and continuity are expected to provide gradual path towards recovery of the labour market in the forthcoming quarter, notwithstanding the threat of more lethal variant of Covid-19,” the department stated.