Chief statistician Uzir Mahidin said three states recorded rates exceeding the 60% target set under the 12th Malaysia Plan- Putrajaya at 77.5%, followed by Selangor (69%) and Kuala Lumpur (66%).

“The three states with the lowest female labour force participation rate were Terengganu (42.7%), Kelantan (45.8%) and Pahang (47.4%),” he said in a statement.

Uzir said Malaysia’s labour force showed steady growth in the fourth quarter, increasing by 0.8% to 17.62 million.

“In line with this improvement, the number of employed people edged up by 0.8% to 17.1 million people from 16.97 million in Q3.

“The number of unemployed people decreased slightly by 0.4% to 5,179,000, resulting in a 0.1 percentage point decrease in the unemployment rate to 2.9%,” he said.