• Employment grew by 2.2% yoy

• The number of unemployed persons declined 0.2% yoy

• Labor force moderated to 2.1% yoy

• Labor force participation rate up to 68.6%

• Unemployment rate stable at 3.3% in January

• Domestic labour market remains solid

Employment grew by 2.2% to 14.99m persons in January 2019, lower than 2.4% yoy growth in December 2018. Meanwhile, on monthly basis it expanded by only 0.05% as only 6.8k jobs were added in January as compared to December’s 44.7k. Meanwhile, the number of unemployed declined -0.2% yoy to 516,000 in January. Likewise, the number of labour force in this month rose 2.1% yoy to 15.51m persons. The labour force participation rate in January 2019 increased 0.1 percentage point to 68.6 per cent as compared to the previous month and increased 0.4 percentage points as compared to the same month of previous year (January 2018: 68.2%).

The unemployment rate in January 2019 remained at 3.3% since September 2018. The number of unemployed persons recorded a total of 515.6 thousand persons, dropped 0.2% yoy. Unemployment rate (seasonally adjusted) in January decreased to 3.2% as compared to 3.3% in the previous month.

Source: BIMB Securities Research - 11 Mar 2019