Malaysia's labor productivity increases 3.6 pct in
Q4 as the economy continues to expand

Malaysia's labor productivity as expressed by value added per employment in the fourth quarter of 2022 increased 3.6 percent, as the economy continued to expand in the quarter, official data showed Thursday.

The Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM) said in a statement that during the quarter, employment rose 3.2 percent year on year, recording an increase in value added per employment in the fourth quarter of 2022 to 24,915 ringgit (5,662.5 U.S. dollars).

According to the statement, the accelerated business activity observed in this quarter thus translated into the increase in total hours worked by 5 percent with a record increase of 9.2 billion hours.

Therefore, labor productivity as measured by value added per hour worked also posted an increase with a growth of 1.9 percent to 43.1 ringgit (9.8 U.S. dollars) per hour.

In terms of labor productivity as expressed by value added per employment, all sectors posted increases with the highest growth registered by construction of 10 percent, followed by mining and quarrying of 6.5 percent.

As for the year 2022, the performance of labor productivity per employment strengthened by 5.4 percent year on year to record value added per employment of 95,628 ringgit (21,733 U.S. dollars) per person.

Meanwhile, value added per hour worked rebounded to 1.8 percent with a value of 41.7 ringgit (9.48 U.S. dollars).

In comparison with the pre-pandemic period, both labor productivity per hour worked and labor productivity per employment exceeded the level of 2019. Two sectors, namely manufacturing and services, had surpassed the pre-pandemic level while the other sectors remained below.