Increase in working population next year

KUALA LUMPUR: The country’s labour market is expected to remain favourable with the working population expected to increase to 15.1 million next year compared to 14.8 million this year.

According to the Economic Outlook 2019 report released by the Ministry of Finance today, the unemployment rate is expected to be sustained at 3.3 percent with more new jobs in the economy.

Of the total working population, about 9.3 million persons would be recruited in the service sector as compared to 9 million in 2018.

“Meanwhile, total employed persons in the manufacturing and agriculture sectors are projected to be sustained at 2.5 million and 1.9 million in 2018 and 2019 respectively,” according to the report.

During the first half of 2018, a total of 550,449 job vacancies were recorded while the number of active job seekers declined by 22.3 percent or 241,046 persons.

“Amid favourable labour market conditions, the number of retrenched workers remained low at 9,249 persons,” according to the report.

Based on the report, the number of registered foreign workers decreased to 1.7 million as at endAugust 2018.

The current share of foreign workers remained relatively low at 12 percent of total employment following the government’s effort to reduce dependency on low- skilled foreign workers of not more than 15 percent of total employment by 2020.

“Foreign workers were mainly from Indonesia (39 percent), Nepal (20.9 percent) and Bangladesh (18 percent) with the manufacturing sector employing the highest number of foreign workers followed by the construction and plantation sectors,” according to the report.

Moreover, the report also pointed that labour productivity is projected to reach RM85,600 or 2.9 per cent next year on account of productivity improvement in the manufacturing ( 3.9 percent) and construction sectors (3.4 percent) while the services sector declines three per cent.