Youth unemployment vs. headline unemployment in Malaysia

Malaysia’s headline unemployment rate has held steady near 3% for most of the past year. Over the same period, unemployment among 15–24 year-olds has stayed above 10%; roughly 3.4 times the headline figure, on a trailing 12-month basis.

The chart below tracks both series monthly from 2016 through mid-2026, along with the ratio between them.

data = FileAttachment("data/clean.csv").csv({typed: true})

Plot.plot({
  width: 700,
  height: 380,
  marginLeft: 50,
  y: {grid: true, label: "Unemployment rate (%)"},
  x: {label: null},
  color: {
    domain: ["Headline", "Youth (15–24)"],
    range: ["#2E3440", "#B5533C"],
    legend: true
  },
  marks: [
    Plot.lineY(data, {x: "date", y: "u_rate_headline", stroke: () => "Headline", strokeWidth: 2}),
    Plot.lineY(data, {x: "date", y: "u_rate_15_24", stroke: () => "Youth (15–24)", strokeWidth: 2}),
    Plot.ruleY([0])
  ]
})

Plot.plot({
  width: 700,
  height: 260,
  marginLeft: 50,
  y: {grid: true, label: "Ratio (youth ÷ headline)"},
  x: {label: null},
  marks: [
    Plot.lineY(data, {x: "date", y: "ratio_15_24", stroke: "#B5533C", strokeWidth: 2}),
    Plot.ruleY([1], {stroke: "#999", strokeDasharray: "4,4"})
  ]
})

A note on the data

Data prior to 2025 is compiled against 2010 Census population estimates; data from 2025 onward uses the 2020 Census. DOSM flags this as a likely source of a trend break in the series, independent of any underlying labour market change. The youth series (lfs_month_youth) is only available from January 2016 onward, which sets the start date for this analysis.

How Malaysia compares globally

The ILO’s Global Employment Trends for Youth 2026 report puts the global youth-to-adult unemployment ratio at 3.43 for 2025. The youth unemployment rate worldwide was, on average, 3.43 times the adult unemployment rate. Numerically, Malaysia’s trailing 12-month ratio of 3.4 sits close to that global figure. This similarity should not be over-interpreted. The Malaysian ratio shown here uses the headline unemployment rate as its denominator, while the ILO measure uses the adult unemployment rate.

The same report notes that Southeast Asia & the Pacific, as a region, saw youth-to-adult unemployment ratios of between five and seven while also recording some of the lowest absolute youth unemployment rates globally, under 10%. Malaysia’s own youth rate (10.1–10.3% in recent months) sits slightly above that regional figure, though the measures presented here cannot tell us whether Malaysia is representative of the region in terms of the youth-to-adult unemployment gap.

Does Malaysia have a jobs problem, or does it have a first-job problem? Are employers’ expectations for entry-level jobs aligned with the qualifications and experience young people can realistically be expected to have?

We report the numbers as they stand. What they mean is left to the reader.

Sources: Department of Statistics Malaysia, Monthly Principal Labour Force Statistics and Monthly Youth Unemployment (OpenDOSM, CC BY 4.0). ILO, Global Employment Trends for Youth 2026: Back to the Future.