MCO: Unemployment rate rises to 10-year high, 110k no longer employed

The country's unemployment rate hit 3.9 percent in March, the highest since June 2010 when the rate was 3.6 percent, said the Statistics Department.

"This high unemployment rate was mainly attributed to the adverse impact of the movement control order (MCO) on the labour market," the department said in a statement today.

"The unemployment category for the youth age group of 15 to 30 years recorded the highest unemployment rate (6.9 percent) followed by 31 to 45 years (1.4 percent) and age group 46 to 64 (1.1 percent)," it also said.

A Flourish chart

A look at data released by the department in May 2011, showed that the March 2020 unemployment rate could be higher than in April 2009 (3.8 percent).

It is unclear if the 2009 figures had been revised as the 2010 figures were in September 2011.

Meanwhile, the number of employed persons in March dropped 110,000 to 15.23 million people compared to February.

Overall, the number of unemployed persons for the first quarter of this year was at 546,600 up 5.8 percent compared to the same quarter last year and is the highest since the second quarter of 2017.

The rise in unemployment is likely linked to companies struggling to make ends meet during the MCO.

A survey by the Statistics Department of 4,094 companies found that 53.4 percent only had enough funds to sustain one or two months if they put employees on fully paid or half paid leave.

Another 16.5 percent could sustain for less than a month in that scenario.

According to the survey, 3.5 percent of companies resorted to terminating workers during the MCO, or sent them on unpaid leave (16.5 percent).

Only 33.5 percent of companies had employees working from home, while others had to resort to reducing work hours with either full pay (16.5 percent) or half pay (5.8 percent).

Of the companies surveyed, 52.1 percent found that government aid had helped to reduce their burdens, while 47.9 percent said it did not.

Most of the companies (42.5 percent) said it would take more than six months for them to recover, while 1.9 percent have been forced to close because of the Covid-19 pandemic. - Mkini