The impact from the conditional movement control order (CMCO) to contain the virus spread saw economic activities continuing to operate under strict SOPs. But it had a slight impact on the labour market in November with higher job losses and more staying outside the labour force. Unemployment rose slightly to 4.8% from 4.7% in October.

With continuous pressure on the economic activities as uncertainty looms over the Covid-19 situation and vaccine administration, the labour market remains challenging. Room for unemployment to reach 4.9%–5.0% by end-2020 remains high although there are possibilities for the unemployment rate to stabilise at 4.7%.

• The impact from the conditional movement control order (CMCO) to contain the virus spread saw economic activities continuing to operate under strict SOPs. But it had a slight impact on the labour market in November with higher job losses and more staying outside the labour force.

• The November unemployment data showed a slight increase to 4.7% from 4.6% in October, the highest since June 2020. A total of 764.4K persons were unemployed in November from 748.2K persons in October.

• Hence, total employed persons fell by 11K to 15.20 million persons in November (October 2020: 15.21 million persons) after recording an upward trend for five consecutive months.

• Meanwhile, the number of persons outside the labour force went up by 0.4% or 27.1K persons to 7.37 million (October 2020: 7.35 million persons).

• With continuous pressure on the economic activities as uncertainty looms over the Covid-19 situation and vaccine administration, the labour market remains challenging. Room for unemployment to reach 4.9%–5.0% by end-2020 remains high although there are possibilities for the unemployment rate to stabilise at 4.7% in end-2020.

Source: AmInvest Research - 12 Jan 2021