Bumiputera population estimated at 21.3mil this year

The labour force participation rate has increased to 67.1% from 65.8% in 2021, says Chief Statistician Uzir Mahidin.

(FMT) – The Bumiputera population is estimated at 21.3 million or 63.9% of the 33.4 million population in Malaysia this year, according to the Bumiputera Statistics 2023 released by the statistics department.

Chief Statistician Uzir Mahidin said in a statement that the male Bumiputera population is estimated at 10.8 million people and the females make up 10.5 million, while the gender ratio for the overall Bumiputera population is 102 males for every 100 females.

“Participation in selected professional fields showed that Bumiputeras accounted for 92.7% and 83.8% of assistant medical officers and nurses in 2022.

“Meanwhile, Bumiputeras accounted for 60.8% of land surveyors, 61.5% of quantity surveyors, 52.8% of dentists, and 52.7% of interior designers.

“However, Bumiputeras registered below 50% participation as architects (41.2%), lawyers (38.2%), and accountants (31.8%),” he said.

Meanwhile, findings related to the labour force in 2022 showed that a total of 9.6 million labour force were Bumiputeras, namely 5.8 million males and 3.9 million females.

Uzir said the labour force participation rate (LFPR) for Bumiputeras increased to 67.1% compared with 2021 (65.8%), while in terms of gender, the LFPR for Bumiputera male and female were 80% and 54.1%, respectively.

“Based on educational attainment, the share of the Bumiputera labour force having educational attainment at secondary and below was at 62.3%,” he said, adding that 37.7% of the Bumiputera labour force attained tertiary education.

Uzir said the unemployment rate among Bumiputeras was 4% compared with 5% in 2021.

In terms of graduate statistics, the number of Bumiputera graduates registered in 2022 was 3.8 million, namely 1.7 million males and 2.2 million females.

The LFPR of male Bumiputera graduates in 2022 stood at 88.3% compared with the previous year, while the LFPR for female graduates slightly increased to 82.9% from 82.1% in 2021.

For property transactions in 2022, Bumiputeras recorded 121,997 residential property transactions with a contribution of 36.8% (RM34.7 billion) to the total transfer value of residential property (RM94.3 billion).

“Bumiputeras made 3,774 transactions of commercial property with a transfer value of RM2.1 billion compared with RM1.5 billion in 2021,” Uzir said.

From a welfare perspective, the number of Bumiputeras registered at the general welfare institutions under the social welfare department in 2022 was 2,714 compared with 2,948 in 2021.

Uzir said of the total, 1,096 were in childcare centres, 637 were in institutions for the disabled, and 981 were in institutions for the elderly and destitute.