Malaysia’s unemployment rate in August 2022 stood at 3.7%, down 0.9% year-on-year, but unchanged over the month, according to research from Statistics Malaysia.

The research also showed that the seasonally adjusted estimates for the unemployment rate remained at 3.6%.

The number of unemployed persons stood at 612,000, down 1.4% on the month and down 18.3% over the year.

In August 2022, the number of employed persons remained stable by registering an increase of 0.2% over the month, or equivalent to 39,300 persons to record 16.02 million persons (July 2022: 15.98 million persons). This was up 4.2% over the year.

By economic sector, the number of employed persons in the services sector remained on an increasing trend, particularly in food & beverages services; wholesale & retail trade and administrative & support service activities. A similar trend was observed in the manufacturing and construction sectors, while the number of employed persons in the agriculture and mining & quarrying sectors continued to decrease on a monthly basis.

Looking at employment status, employees made up the largest category of the total number of employed persons with 76.0%. This category increased by 0.2% over the month and up 2.3% over the year. On the same note, the number of own-account workers remained on an upward trend with a 0.6% monthly increase and 10.5% annual increase. This group consisted mostly of daily income earners working as small business operators such as retailers; hawkers; sellers in markets and stalls, as well as smallholders.

Employers also reported an 11.3% annual increase and 0.3% monthly increase. Unpaid family workers reported a decrease of 0.4% on a monthly basis but an increase of 10.9% over the year.

The labour force participation rate stood at 69.7% in August, up 1.3% over the year and up 0.1% over the month.