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Labour market will remain healthy : MIDF
KUALA LUMPUR: The labour market continues to remain healthy in Malaysia with a surge in job opportunities in the manufacturing sector.
MIDF Research, commenting on the latest data by the Statistics Department, attributed it to positive spillover effects.
“We opine the strong export performance since late last year has contributed significantly towards strengthening Malaysia’s labour market.”
Export growth in September for instance, rose by 14.8 per cent year-on-year.
MIDF Research described the labour market as healthy.
“Better performance in the labour market was due to healthy expansions in both labour force and employment by 2 per cent year-on-year and 2.1 per cent year-on-year accordingly in September.
“Plus, unemployed persons reduced from 519,000 in July to 515,000 in September,”it noted.
This positive development put Malaysia’s unemployment at 3.4 per cent during the month.
“As domestic economic activities are on upbeat momentum, growths in both labour force and employment have been outpacing unemployment growth for seven consecutive months since March 2017.”
The research house expects Malaysia’s unemployment rate to average at 3.3 per cent in 2017.
“Moving forward, we anticipate domestic as well as global economic activities will stay on upward trajectory given key economic indicators are showing sign of optimism.”
As global trade improves further this year Malaysia, as an export-reliance economy, will benefit from the development via increase in exports demand and more jobs creation especially in the exports-oriented industries.
Malaysia recorded nine consecutive months of double digit export growth in 2017 while domestically, retail trade expanded by 7.6 per cent year-on-year while industrial production rose by 4.7 per cent year-on-year in the same month.
As a result, 31,000 new jobs were added into the economy in September.
Job vacancies in August rose to the highest since December 2012 driven by job vacancies in sectors namely manufacturing, construction and services.
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