Employers retain workers by paying less in pandemic - chief statistician

 

Most employers retain their workers by paying lower salaries following the slower demand for labour during the Covid-19 pandemic, said Chief Statistician Mohd Uzir Mahidin.

“Although seen as a better short-term alternative, it will affect the quality of work and the workers’ wellbeing in the long run,” he said at the Labour Market Forum 2021 held virtually today.

He said the labour market is facing challenges to remain competitive following the pandemic.

Issues of unemployment and structural unemployment had to be tackled, he said, to ensure the country’s economic recovery.

Among the challenges is the continuous increase in the skill-related underemployment rate since the third quarter of 2020.

“The structural unemployment can be linked to the slow demand for labour in the skilled job category.

“This shows that industries are facing a problem to absorb the supply of tertiary-educated labour or workers with jobs that match their educational background,” he said.

Mohd Uzir said the reduction of operating hours of economic sectors during the pandemic also contributed to the increase of time-related underemployment rate to 2.2 percent in the third quarter of 2021.

This is from the quarterly average of 1.3 percent in 2019.

“The increase of employment in this category involving those who can afford and are willing to have more working hours can be linked to the transition to a flexible job arrangement in terms of time and place of work,” he said.

He added that among those in the category are gig workers.

Meanwhile, he said the country’s labour market showed a recovery trend by recording a lower unemployment rate of 4.3 percent last October with the number of unemployed at 705,000.

Despite being the lowest rate recorded since March 2020, it still surpassed the rate recorded before the pandemic, which is around 3.3 percent or approximately 500,000 unemployed.

“Most countries including the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada have not been able to get their unemployment rate back as it was before the pandemic,” he said.

During the forum, an interactive portal offering information on the labour market, Malaysia Labour Market Interactive Data (MyLMID), was launched.

The portal is for official labour market data in the form of charts and interactive visuals to be quickly accessible.

“The aspirations behind the development of MyLMID are, among others, to help users to access data quicker,” he said.

MyLMID can be accessed at www.dosm.gov.my or https://mbls.dosm.gov.my/mylmid/dashboard.html.

- Bernama