PUTRAJAYA, March 11 — The number of those unemployed in January decreased to 533,800, with an unemployment rate of 3.1 per cent, according to the Labour Force Statistics, January 2025, released today.
This marks a 0.9 per cent drop from the 538,500 unemployed people in December.
Chief statistician Datuk Seri Mohd Uzir Mahidin said the country’s labour market is in an upward trend, reflecting ongoing improvement in the nation’s economic conditions despite some challenges in trade and inflation.
“The size of the labour force in January 2025 improved further, increasing by 0.3 per cent month-on-month to 17.22 million people (December 2024: 17.17 million people). The labour force participation rate remained at 70.6 per cent as in the previous month,” he said in a statement today.
Uzir added that the number of employed persons continued to improve, registering a 0.3 per cent increase to 16.68 million people, compared with 16.63 million in December.
Elaborating on the employment situation, he said the majority of those employed in January were in the employees category, constituting 75.3 per cent, or an increase of 0.3 per cent to 12.56 million people (December: 12.53 million people).
The own-account workers category also increased by 0.7 per cent to 3.11 million people, compared with 3.09 million in December.
Regarding unemployment, Uzir said 79.4 per cent of unemployed people were actively unemployed, as they were available for work and actively seeking jobs.
“In this category, the number fell by 0.5 per cent to 423,600 people compared to 425,700 people in December 2024.
“By duration of unemployment for the actively unemployed, 63.6 per cent were unemployed for less than three months, while 5.6 per cent were in long-term unemployment for more than a year. In the meantime, the inactively unemployed, or those who believed that there were no jobs available, decreased by 2.3 per cent to 110,200 people,” he added.
In January, the unemployment rate for those aged 15 to 24 stood at 10.3 per cent, registering 299,300 unemployed youths compared to the preceding month (December: 10.4 per cent; 301,400 people).
— Bernama
