KUALA LUMPUR, July 10 — The strengthening of Malaysia’s job market will further reinforce consumer consumption and support overall Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth this year, said MIDF Research.
However, the research house expects a slight moderation of employment growth in the second half of 2023 (2H 2023) due to a slump in external trade performances.
Nevertheless, the labour market in Malaysia is expected to strengthen further in 2023 and 2024, backed by encouraging momentum in the domestic economy.
“Malaysia’s average unemployment rate is expected to decline further to 3.5 per cent in 2023 and return to pre-pandemic levels at 3.3 per cent in 2024,” MIDF Research said in a note today.
The return of non-citizen workers is expected to boost overall employment and reduce the jobless rate.
“Continued improvement in the labour market will support consumer spending as the wage recipients to employment ratio has reached a new peak at 64.5 per cent in 2021, thanks to among others the minimum wage salary policy,” it said.
According to the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM), the labour force numbers in May 2023 continued to record a steady upward trend with an addition of 0.2 per cent to register 16.86 million persons compared to 16.84 million in April.
Meanwhile, a month-on-month comparison showed that the number of employed persons in May 2023 inched up 0.2 per cent to record 16.28 million persons versus 16.25 million in April.
Commenting further, MIDF Research believes the elevated job vacancies among others supported the steady employment growth and reduction in unemployment, as well as outside labour force since early 2021.
“We foresee average job vacancies to hover between 150,000 and 250,000 per month for 2023 due to the external trade weakness in 2H 2023,” it added.
— Bernama
