Malaysia’s unemployment rate drops in January 2025

PUTRAJAYA: Malaysia’s unemployment rate improved in January 2025, dropping to 3.1 per cent with 533,800 unemployed persons — a slight decrease of 0.9 per cent from the 538,500 recorded in December 2024, according to the Labour Force Statistics report released by the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM).

According to Bernama, Chief Statistician Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin said the improvement reflected the country’s strengthening economic conditions despite challenges in trade and inflation.

Mr Mahidin stated that the labour force grew by 0.3 per cent month-on-month (MoM), reaching 17.22 million in January 2025, up from 17.17 million in December 2024, while the participation rate remained stable at 70.6 per cent.

Employment figures also showed positive growth, with the number of employed persons rising by 0.3 per cent to 16.68 million, up from 16.63 million in December 2024.

Mr Mahidin noted that most employed persons in January 2025 were in the employee category, making up 75.3 per cent, or 12.56 million people, a 0.3 per cent increase from 12.53 million in December 2024.

The number of self-employed individuals, classified as own-account workers, also grew by 0.7 per cent, reaching 3.11 million compared to 3.09 million in the previous month.

In terms of unemployment, actively unemployed individuals—those available for work and actively seeking jobs—accounted for 79.4 per cent of the total unemployed population. This group saw a slight decline of 0.5 per cent, dropping to 423,600 from 425,700 in December 2024.

Among the actively unemployed, 63.6 per cent were jobless for less than three months, while 5.6 per cent had been unemployed for over a year.

Meanwhile, the number of inactively unemployed individuals — those who were not seeking jobs as they believed no jobs were available, according to Mr Mahidin — dropped by 2.3 per cent to 110,200 people.

Youth unemployment for those aged 15 to 24 showed a marginal improvement, falling to 10.3 per cent in January 2025 from 10.4 per cent in December 2024. The number of unemployed youths dropped slightly to 299,300 from 301,400. /TISG

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