Malaysia’s unemployment rate stood at 4.8% in June 2021, down 0.1% year-on-year, according to research from Statistics Malaysia.

When compared to May 2021, the unemployment rate climbed by 0.3%, after four consecutive months of decreases.

The number of unemployed persons increased by 5.6% when compared to May and down 0.6% compared to June 2020, to a total of 768,700 persons.

The number of employed persons decreased by 0.5% when compared to June 2021 and increased by 2.0% compared to June 2020, to a total of 15.30 million persons.

During the month, the number of labour force declined month on month to 16.07 million persons (May 2021: 16.10 million persons) and this was the first decrease of labour force recorded since April 2020 as the pandemic hit the country. When compared to the previous year, the number of labour force increased by 1.9%.

The labour force participation rate (LFPR) was registered at 68.3% (May 2021: 68.5%, June 2020: 68.1%).