Employers Retain Staff by Paying Lower Wages During Pandemic
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Following the slower demand for labour during the Covid-19 outbreak, Chief Statistician Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin said that most companies retained their staff by paying lower wages.
"While it may appear to be a better short-term option, it will have a long-term impact on the quality of employment and people's well-being," he stated at the Labor Market Forum 2021.
Following the Covid-19 outbreak, Mohd Uzir said the labour market was now experiencing hurdles to remain competitive, and concerns such as unemployment and structural unemployment, among others, had to be addressed to ensure the country's ability to recover economically.
The issue of underemployment
The continuous rise in the skill-related underemployment rate since the third quarter of 2020 is one of the challenges.
"The slow demand for labour in the skilled job category can be linked to structural unemployment. It demonstrates that sectors are having difficulty absorbing the supply of tertiary-educated labour or workers with employment that matched their educational backgrounds," he explained.
Mohd Uzir said the reduction of economic sectors' operating hours during the pandemic contributed to an increase in the time-related underemployment rate to 2.2% in the third quarter of 2021, up from the quarterly average of 1.3% in 2019.
"The increase of employment in this category involving those who can afford and are inclined 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, adding that gig workers are among those in the category.
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According to the Chief Statistician, most employers retained their workers by paying lower wages following the slower demand for labour during the pandemic
Recovery in the labour market
Meanwhile, Mohd Uzir said Malaysia's labour market showed signs of improvement, with an unemployment rate of 4.3% in October and 705,000 unemployed people.
Despite being the lowest percentage since March 2020, it still outperformed the rate before the epidemic, which was at 3.3%, or about 500,000 unemployed persons.
"Most countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada, have not been able to return to pre-pandemic unemployment rates," he stated.
Malaysia Labour Market Interactive Data
During the forum, an interactive portal offering labour market information named Malaysia Labour Market Interactive Data (MyLMID) was launched to enable the official labour market data in the form of charts and interactive visuals to be readily available.
MyLMID, which was created by the Malaysian Bureau of Labour Statistics (MBLS), also provided the concept and definition of data measurement, as well as documentation of MBLS technical papers.
"The ambitions for the establishment of MyLMID are, among other things, to assist users access data faster than they can with the current approach, which requires a waiting period for data to be delivered," he said, adding that the portal would be improved regularly.
You can access MyLMID at www.dosm.gov.my or https://mbls.dosm.gov.my/mylmid/dashboard.html.
Source: BERNAMA