PUTRAJAYA: The number of unemployed in September 2024 continued to drop to 555,300 with an unemployment rate of 3.2 per cent (pct), according to the September and Third Quarter (Q3) 2024 Labour Force Statistics issued by the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM).
DOSM chief statistician Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin said the decreasing number of unemployed (August 2024: 558,500 people) and the increase in the number of working people is a follow-up to the country’s encouraging economic performance and the country’s labour market position in September 2024 remains strong.
“Therefore, the labour force continued to grow in September with an increase of 0.1 pct to 17.24 million people (August 2024: 17.22 million people).
“In this regard, a higher Labour Force Participation Rate (KPTB) at 70.5 pct, sees an increase of 0.1 percentage point compared to the previous month (August 2024: 70.4 pct),“ he said in a statement today.
Elaborating on unemployment, he said the unemployment rate for youth aged 15 to 24 increased 0.1 pct to 10.5 pct from last month with 304,200 people (August 2024: 303,000 people).
The unemployment rate for youth aged 15 to 30 dropped to 6.3 pct, recording 420,100 youth unemployed (August 2024: 428,500).
Regarding the overall performance for the third quarter of the year (Q3) 2024, Mohd Uzir said the labour force shows a positive trend, increasing by 0.7 pct quarter-to-quarter to 17.26 million people (Q2 2024: 17.15 million people).
“The working population increased by 0.7 pct to 16.72 million people (Q2 2024: 16.59 million people) while the unemployed decreased by 1.8 pct to 547,900 people (Q2 2024: 557,800), resulting in an unemployment rate of 3.2 pct in Q3 2024 compared to 3.3 pct in Q2 2024 ,” he said.
In terms of unemployment rate and KPTB by state, Kedah recorded the lowest unemployment rate at 1.6 pct in the quarter, followed by Selangor (1.9 pct) while Penang and Putrajaya are at 2.0 pct.
Selangor recorded the highest KPTB at 76.3 pct, followed by Kuala Lumpur (74.9 pct) and Johor (71.4 pct).
