26,638 employees laid off in Jan-Aug period

PETALING JAYA: During the first eight months of the year, the number of retrenched workers as reported by the Ministry of Human Resources increased to 26,638 persons, slightly higher than the 26,367 persons in the same period last year.
The highest retrenchment was in the manufacturing sector (75.8%), followed by services (20.7%) and mining (2.5%) sectors.
By the occupational category, the plant and machine operators and assemblers recorded the highest retrenchment of 33.6% followed by professionals (20.5%) as well as technicians and associate professionals (18.6%).
The retrenchments were mainly due to downsizing, business closures and production reduction.
Nonetheless, the labour market remained favourable in the first half of 2017 with an unemployment rate of 3.4%. The total labour force increased 1.9% to 14.9 million.
The total employed persons expanded 1.9% to 14.4 million. The largest number of employed persons was in the services sector at 8.9 million or 62% of total employment, mainly in the wholesale and retail trade subsector.
The total job vacancies more than doubled to 926,359 in the first eight months of 2017 against 433,634 in the same period last year.
As at end-August, the number of active jobseekers decreased 2.8% to 276,635.
The labour productivity increased 3.5% in 2016 with the construction sector registering the highest growth at 12.4%.
Meanwhile, the average monthly salaries and wages of employees based on the 2016 Salaries and Wages Survey Report by the Department of Statistics rose 6.5% to RM2,463 from RM2,312 in 2015.