PUTRAJAYA, June 11 — Malaysia’s unemployment rate returned to 3 per cent (511,800 people) in April, showed the Labour Force Statistics for April released by the Statistics Department (DOSM) today.
The April rate was 0.1 percentage points higher than March’s 2.9 per cent, returning to the October 2025 level.
Chief statistician Datuk Seri Mohd Uzir Mahidin said the number of employed people continued to increase in April, rising by 0.1 per cent to 16.82 million persons against March’s 16.8 million people.
“The employees’ category constituted 75 per cent of total employed persons in April 2026. This category increased marginally by 0.05 per cent to 12.61 million persons (March: 12.6 million persons).
“In the meantime, the number of own-account workers continued to trend upward and rose by 0.2 per cent to 3.15 million persons against the preceding month,” he said in a statement today.
Uzir highlighted that the actively unemployed, defined as those who are available for work and actively seeking jobs, accounted for 79.5 per cent of the total unemployed persons.
This group posted an increase of 0.3 per cent to 407,100 persons, and a total of 63.9 per cent of the actively unemployed were unemployed for less than three months, while 5 per cent are in long-term unemployment for more than a year.
“The inactively unemployed, comprising those who believe no jobs are available, went up by 1.5 per cent to 104,700 persons compared with 103,200 persons the previous month,” Uzir added.
Commenting on Malaysia’s overall labour force performance for April, he said the country’s labour market continued to show modest growth during the month, reflecting the economy’s steady expansion.
Accordingly, the labour force edged up 0.1 per cent to 17.33 million people compared with 17.31 million last month.
Meanwhile, Uzir said, April’s labour force participation rate remained at 70.9 per cent.
