Labour Market Outlook Remains Positive For Remainder Of 2024 -- HLIB

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 11 (Bernama) -- Hong Leong Investment Bank Bhd (HLIB) expects Malaysia’s labour market outlook for the rest of 2024 to remain positive, with the unemployment rate likely to hold steady at around 3.2 per cent.

In a research note today, HLIB said the country’s stable and healthy job market is expected to continue to drive domestic consumption and support economic growth.

“However, the pace of improvement is expected to be modest going forward given the continued global uncertainties, including geopolitical tension, weak growth in China and global inflation.

“Taking all into consideration, we maintain our 2024 gross domestic product growth forecast at 5.0 per cent year-on-year,” it said.

According to the Labour Force Statistics released yesterday, August’s unemployment rate fell to 3.2 per cent, registering 558,500 unemployed persons.

The rate dropped by 0.1 percentage points to 3.2 per cent after registering a rate of 3.3 per cent for nine months.

Meanwhile, MIDF Amanah Investment Bank Bhd’s research arm, MIDF Research, said the unemployment rate has fallen to a new post-pandemic low.

“Malaysia’s labour market remained healthy in August 2024 as the unemployment rate fell to 3.2 per cent, the lowest in the post-pandemic period and back to the level last seen in January 2020.

“With more people getting employed, the unemployment count decreased further to 559,000, the lowest since February 2020.

Thus, MIDF Research opined Malaysia’s unemployment rate to remain low and average at 3.3 per cent for 2024.

“With the jobless rate falling further to 3.2 per cent in August 2024, we foresee firms will continue to increase labour demand in view of a positive economic outlook,” it said.

MIDF Research said the increased employment of foreign labour would also contribute to employment growth, with total hirings of non-citizens increasing to 2.36 million as of the second quarter (2Q) 2024, from 2.22 million in 4Q 2023 or only 1.1 per cent lower than the pre-pandemic level of 2.39 million in 4Q 2019.

“Given the external uncertainties, we remain cautious that the job market outlook will also be affected by several downside risks, such as renewed weakness in external trade and disruption to the global supply chain, either due to weak final demand from major trading partners or worsening in the ongoing geopolitical conflicts,” it added.

-- BERNAMA